Renewal
by ZVArmy
Summary: Ronda Rousey is set to return to WWE once more, after another lengthy absence. With her contract approaching expiry, it is time for a renewal to be discussed. Given that her husband Seth Rollins is signed to WWE for four years, it should be a simple thing to get Ronda to sign a new deal as well, shouldn't it? *Seth/Ronda story 11 of 11*
1. Chapter 1

Hunter Helmsley had always liked a challenge. Tonight, not for the first time, his challenge was Ronda Rousey. It had been almost a year since the last time she had made an appearance for WWE - the last one being her sendoff on the Smackdown episode following Summerslam after her longstanding neck problems had forced her into retirement from wrestling.

The plan all along had been for Ronda to take an on-screen role as Smackdown's General Manager following her retirement, but for one reason or another, that idea was yet to come to fruition. Tonight, Hunter was going to change that.

"The place looks nice, doesn't it?" Hunter's wife Stephanie asked. She was standing beside him, her arm linked with his as they appraised The Venice Steakhouse, the restaurant owned by Ronda and her husband Seth Rollins, for the first time. They were both dressed smartly - Hunter in a dark blue suit and white shirt, Stephanie in a turquoise sleeveless dress. Their appearance was appropriate for the venue, they could see through the windows. There was barely a table empty, and everyone who was eating was dressed smart-casual at worst.

Very little appeared to have been spared in expenses by Seth and Ronda in how they had decorated and furnished the Steakhouse in the most modern styles. When Seth had made the invitation to dinner to Hunter, he had described the restaurant as a place that served fine food to people who could afford it. It was not a five star place exclusive to the rich and famous, but it certainly wasn't a Wendy's either.

"They've done well," Hunter said. "Assuming the food matches the appearance. I'm sure it does, though. Come on, let's go in. Seth and Ronda are here somewhere; I saw his Mercedes in the parking lot."

Hunter lead his wife into the restaurant. With perfect timing, they were approached by a dark haired, smartly dressed man in a black suit who looked to be in his early forties. "Good evening, and welcome to The Venice Steakhouse. Mr and Mrs Helmsley?"

"That's us," Hunter confirmed pleasantly. "We're dining with Seth and Ronda." He was sure that addition had not been necessary.

"Yes, sir. They arrived a few minutes ago. If you'll follow me, please?"

Always keen remember his manners, Hunter waited a second so that Stephanie could walk ahead of him as they were lead across the restaurant. He quickly saw where Seth and Ronda were sitting, in a booth as far from the doors to the kitchen and bathrooms as possible, away from the majority of the footfall, he realised. That was no accident. The quietest table in the place had been reserved for management.

Ronda was sitting facing the restaurant's entrance, and had noticed their guests, bosses, and in some ways possibly even friends almost as soon as they had walked in. "They're here," she told her husband, then followed his example as he stood and turned to greet them.

"Hi, Steph," Seth smiled, giving WWE's CEO a peck on the cheek as she returned his greeting in kind.

The two women then shared a brief hug while the men shook hands. When that was done, Ronda received a peck on the cheek from Hunter.

"I'm glad you were able to come," Ronda said to the man who had been her biggest supporter at WWE ever since she had joined the company. Indeed, it was Hunter who had first signed her, back when she had been a referee.

"I'm sorry we couldn't get it worked out sooner," Hunter replied. "But you know how crazy work can be."

Ronda nodded. "Absolutely. But we can sleep when we're dead, right?"

"I really like what you've done with the place," Stephanie was saying as she sat down. Ronda sat beside her, not really considering that her strange question had been ignored. The women were sitting opposite their husbands.

"Thanks," Seth said, taking his own seat. "It was a lot of work getting the place open, and it cost us a small fortune, as you can imagine. But the food and service are good, and that's quickly gotten us a decent reputation. There's sometimes a waiting time of a day or two to get a table in our busiest periods, which says a lot. We're running at a good profit," he concluded, his satisfaction more than apparent.

"Sounds like it's going really well," Hunter said approvingly. "I can't wait to try the food." Four menus had been placed on the end of table prior to their arrival, and Hunter passed them around.

Ronda already knew what she wanted to order, but she pretended to survey the menu anyway as a cover for the fact that she was paying attention to what their guests were going to say about the choices on offer. It was her nature to feel defensive about her restaurant, meaning that positive comments were the only ones she wanted to hear.

"Decisions, decisions," Stephanie said thoughtfully. "I think I'll start with the French Onion Soup."

"I've got my eye on the Veal Carpaccio," Hunter said.

"I'll join you on that one," Seth said. "What are you thinking for your main? I really recommend trying one of the steaks. I'm going to get the New York Strip."

"Well, you are a Steakhouse after all," Hunter smiled. "Okay, I'll go for the Ribeye. Might as well go all-in. How about you, Steph?"

"I'm not a big steak eater," Stephanie admitted to the table. "I'm looking at the fish options. Some of these look really good."

"I like the Steamed Lobster," Ronda said, to join the conversation as much as anything else.

"Okay, you persuaded me," Stephanie said with a smile. "I'll get that."

"What about you, babe?" Seth asked his wife.

"I think I'll get the Caesar Salad, followed by the Grilled Half Chicken. You know I love my chicken."

A server arrived to take their food and drink orders a few moments later. Stephanie's first impression of the service was that it was friendly, professional and efficient. That thought reminded her that she had seen Ronda post pictures a couple of times after she had worked shifts in the restaurant herself. Imagining her providing that level of service was a real stretch. "Do you work here often yourself, Ronda?" she asked.

"Often? No," Ronda said. "But I'll come in if they call me and ask me to help out. It might sound strange, but I kind of enjoy it. It's different when you're working for your own business. Obviously I don't need to explain that to you guys when you're running your family business."

Hunter could have used that opening to start talking about the business-related matters on his agenda for the evening, but he knew that it would be somewhat rude to get into things like that so early in the night. There would be time enough later for that. Two things in particular needed to be discussed: Ronda's impending return to Smackdown, and even more importantly, the fact that her contract was set to expire in the not too distant future.

It was now early August, and her current deal only ran until the end of January. Although she could no longer wrestle, Hunter still considered her to be valuable to WWE because of her movie and TV career. Her latest venture, which had pushed back her return to WWE, had seen her playing the American President in a new network TV series. The show had proven to be very popular, largely due to the quality of the writing and the high production values. The truth of it was that Ronda now had a star presence the likes of which was hard for a wrestling company to attract, which made her an asset that he didn't want to see walking away from the company.

One thing that was likely to go in his favour was that Seth had renewed his own contract only a few months earlier, tying him to WWE for another four years. It seemed obvious that they must have discussed the renewal of her contract at that time, so she would likely have some kind of decision in mind as to whether she would be willing to sign a new deal herself. Hunter hoped that by the time he left The Venice Steakhouse, the very least he would have was a positive indication from her that she wanted to commit herself to WWE in the long term.

The conversation flowed naturally while they waited for their appetisers, helped by the two bottles of wine that they had ordered. There was a bottle of white and a bottle of red to choose from.

It was only natural that they soon found themselves talking shop, since the entire relationship between the two couples revolved around wrestling. They talked about Seth's latest program with AJ Styles, which had been one of most well-received rivalries in recent times. The food took just over ten minutes to arrive, a fact that Seth noted without commenting on it. Ten minutes to get four appetisers out was not bad when the restaurant was almost full to capacity.

"Congratulations on the new show, Ronda. Or should I say Madam President?" Stephanie said with a broad smile after trying her soup. "That's very good," she added, using her spoon to gesture to the bowl.

Ronda beamed right back; the smile that Seth had been lost on since the first time he had seen it. "Thanks, Steph," she said. "But Melissa Shaw is the President, not me. I don't think some people quite get that, though. Would you believe I've had people come up to me in the street or in the supermarket and say that they want to vote for me?"

Hunter and Stephanie both had a good laugh at that. Now that the first course of food had been served, Hunter felt more comfortable steering the conversation towards business. "It'll be a draw having the President on the show," he said as a well calculated joke.

"I honestly think there are people out there who do think she's the President," Seth said, shaking his head in disbelief. "I would make a bet if you showed some of them a picture of Ronda and a picture of the real President and asked them, 'Who is the President of the United States?' they would choose her picture. And we thought wrestling fans who believe kayfabe is real were bad enough."

The laugh Stephanie gave had recognition in it as much as humour. She had been no stranger to abuse in the past when she had played a heel character for so many years. "There are people who take what they see on TV very seriously, there's no doubt about that," she said.

While they had been speaking, Ronda had sat there chewing a mouthful of her salad, contemplating what to say to Hunter. He had pretty obviously been trying to bring up the subject of her return to Smackdown. As was often her style, she defaulted to directness. "So what's the idea for my return?" she asked WWE's Chairman.

Hunter allowed himself a smile as he cut himself a piece of veal. He made Ronda wait until he had eaten it before answering her question. "The plan is to bring you in as the Smackdown GM to replace Steph," Hunter said, knowing that wasn't news to her. They had discussed that aspect even before her retirement; it had just taken longer to happen than Hunter had expected.

"Right. But what will I be doing?" Ronda pushed. "There must be a storyline idea behind it."

"There is," Hunter confirmed after a sip of red wine. "In some ways, you could say we're continuing right from where we left off. You'll be working with Elena D'Agostino again, albeit not wrestling her of course. We're calling someone up from NXT to handle that aspect of it." He left that carrot to dangle in the air.

Ronda remembered back to her last rivalry as an active wrestler. Elena was one of her closest friends in the business, and she considered it an honour to have used her retirement match to put the Italian over as the top heel in women's wrestling. That heat alone had carried Daga through at least six months of competition without the need to generate any more, not that she would have had a problem with doing so. During their rivalry, Elena had proven herself to be a legitimate badass on camera and in the ring, and a class act behind the scenes with how she had conducted herself before and after Ronda hung her boots up for the final time. Both women had known they had a friend for life before the final match at Summerslam had even happened.

The storyline for their rivalry had revolved around Elena kidnapping Ronda at the behest of Cesaro, who had used the fact that she was being held hostage to demand a title match with Seth as a form of ransom payment. The uncomfortable day Ronda had spent tied to a pole in a warehouse to film those scenes was not one of the favourites of her career, but she could not deny that the scenes they had produced had gone over well with the fans, and had played a large part in selling both the D'Agostino - Rousey and Cesaro - Rollins rivalries. There had been an air of gritty realism to the segments that was sadly lacking from a lot of WWE's content.

The first question Ronda had was what exactly Hunter meant by carrying on right from where they had left off. The second question was who he intended to bring up from NXT to wrestle Elena. She certainly knew who she hoped it would be. Charlotte Flair, a long time friend of Ronda's and daughter of her late mentor Ric, had been on NXT for some time now. How quickly the quality of Charlotte's performances had increased had impressed everyone and had soon made her one of the development brand's most popular competitors. It was a matter of time before she got the call up to the next level, and Ronda hoped that was exactly what Hunter had just put on the table.

"Are you telling me I'll get to work with Charlotte?" she asked, doing her best to contain her excitement for the sake of professionalism.

Hunter chuckled once. "Yes, that's what I'm saying. The plan is that Steph will announce Charlotte has been signed to Smackdown and will make her debut at Summerslam, but a challenger is required for the match. I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that Daga will be quick to take offense at someone else getting the spotlight, so she will come out and take the match. At Summerslam, Daga will come out first, but instead of Charlotte's music, yours will hit."

"You'll be trying to keep it a total surprise that Ronda will be there, then?" Seth asked, leaning back in his chair, having made short work of his appetiser.

"Yeah," Hunter confirmed, noting the less than impressed look on Ronda's face. Unsurprisingly, the idea of simply being a manager was not doing it for her. Luckily, there was a lot more to it than that.

"I thought you were talking about me being the Smackdown GM?" Ronda asked. "Now you're saying I'll be managing Charlotte?"

"I'm saying you'll appear at Summerslam as Charlotte's manager," Hunter clarified patiently, knowing from past experience that putting ideas to Ronda was not the easiest of tasks. "It will later be revealed that you had a plan to take over Smackdown right from the start."

"Take over?" Ronda asked with more enthusiasm, the last of her salad forgotten about on her plate. "I like the sound of that, but Steph, you're a face character."

Since the question had been directed to her, Stephanie took over the pitch. It was not a problem, since she knew all of the major details already. "I am a face, which means that in the process of screwing me over, you'll be turning heel."

Seth raised his eyebrows. Not even he was sure how that one was going to go down with his wife.

"A heel turn," Ronda said quietly, thinking about the prospect. Over the years, she had gotten a lot better at accepting things she was asked to do without kicking up a fuss, since seeing a therapist and getting a diagnosis of Oppositional Defiant Disorder. It was for that reason that she put conscious effort into hearing the idea out instead of starting to complain about it right away. "How am I going to go from managing Charlotte to turning heel and taking over Smackdown. Give me the details, guys."

"Remember the kidnapping scenes you did with Daga?" Hunter asked by way of an answer.

"Of course," Ronda said.

"They were some of the most watched videos on our website and Youtube channel in recent times, according to our analytics. Our stats, polls we conduct, stuff like that, also show us that people want to see more of Elena and Ronda. In a way, we're going to give it to them."

"Go on," Ronda urged, feeling her grip on her patience loosening, all the more because she knew Hunter was stringing her along now. Her frustration mounted even more as their server arrived to clear the table, making her wait another minute for an answer.

Much more capable creatively than his wife, Seth felt like he had probably figured out what the idea was by the time the server left the table. "Let me see if I can guess," he said.

"Oh, go on then," Ronda said, brightening up immediately, smiling at her man.

Hunter took a drink from his wine glass and said, "Let's see how close you get. There might be a job in creative for you one day if you can get it right."

Seth laughed. "Okay, here goes. You've talked about Ronda turning heel. You've talked about Daga. You've talked about kidnapping. You've talked about Ronda taking over as Smackdown GM from Steph. So, here's what I think. Daga is going to kidnap Ronda again, but this time it will later be revealed that it was faked. Somehow, Daga will ransom Ronda for Stephanie quitting her job, and that's how she ends up taking over. I'm not sure exactly that's going to work, or if Charlotte is in on it the whole time, too, but how am I doing so far?"

Hunter and Stephanie had good poker faces, but the Chairman had to admit, "That's very good, Seth. You've got the basic outline right."

Not wanting to dwell on the prospect of filming more kidnapping scenes, Ronda focused on the part of the idea that amused her. "I'm held to ransom so that Steph has to quit. I'm guessing Daga will demand the right to appoint a new GM? And she will pick me. That's brilliant," she said, pleasing everyone at the table with the verdict. "I think that's a swerve no one will see coming."

Hunter went on to lay out some more specifics of the idea, then the conversation moved on to other topics while they ate their main courses. It was while they were waiting for desserts that Hunter decided to test the water on the subject of Ronda's contract.

"Ronda, we're thinking of making this Smackdown GM role a fairly long term thing," he began. "The only possible little wrinkle I can see in that is that you're only contracted to us until January." The ideal response he hoped for was for her to tell him not to worry about that, that renewing her contract would not be an issue. However, that wasn't what happened.

"Yeah, I know," Ronda said easily. "I have done some thinking on that, and my agent has mentioned it as well. How about we get my return and the angle with me becoming GM out of the way, then we can look at it? There's no huge rush, right?"

"No huge rush," Hunter said diplomatically, hiding his disappointment perfectly. "Summerslam is in two weeks. We're going have you managing Charlotte for a few weeks before your 'kidnapping' happens, probably on the following pay-per-view. Then that will take a few weeks to play out until you become the new GM. Maybe you're released from captivity a week or two before the October pay-per-view, and Daga can make her choice of appointment at that event."

"Sounds good," Ronda nodded. "Then my agent can meet with you and talk about my contract."

While that exchange had been going on, Stephanie had used a facial expression to ask Seth if Ronda wanted renew. What she was hearing was not as overwhelmingly enthusiastic as she had hoped. At least Seth had given her an 'It'll be fine' expression in reply.

"I'll pencil in a meeting between your agent and Mark Carrano for the week after the October pay-per-view then?" Hunter offered. "Mark's our President of Talent, Live Events and Creative now, my old job. He handles contract negotiations for us now."

"Sure, whatever works," Ronda said, not interested in the business aspect of it. At one time she had seriously thought about investing in WWE and asking for an executive position, but then she had realised that she had just been looking for a way to stick around WWE. There was no need to do that, especially at such a high price. "I'll tell Rob what we've said next time I speak to him," she promised. "I don't think he was my agent last time we had to work something out with each other?"

"No, he wasn't," Hunter said calmly. In the back of his mind, an alarm bell had started ringing.

"He did a lot to get me the role as President Shaw on Executive Orders," Ronda announced.

The alarm bell got louder in Hunter's mind. Ronda had changed agent to a guy with enough clout to get her a lead role on a network TV show. If Hunter had to make a bet, he would have said the guy was the reason Ronda had asked to hold off on contract talks for a while. The closer her contract got to expiring, the more negotiating power her agent had. What if whoever this Rob guy was even had the idea of getting Ronda to leave WWE? It was no secret that the wrestling business was looked down on by some people. Hunter considered that it might be for the best if he got involved in these particular negotiations himself.

By the time he and Stephanie said their goodbyes and thanked Seth and Ronda for what had been a very nice meal and a good night out, Hunter had a headache coming on. He figured that was true in a metaphorical sense also.

"Are you okay, honey?" Stephanie asked when they were back in the privacy of their luxury hire car.

Hunter grimaced. "I've got a feeling this contract renewal is going to be a real headache."


	2. Chapter 2

It was a night that Bayley Martinez and her girlfriend Elena D'Agostino had been looking forward to for some time. Their friend Ronda Rousey was coming to visit them for the first time at the apartment they had recently purchased together; the first time they would see her in several months since. However, Bayley had expressed some self-conscious concern that their home might not seem like anything special to someone who was undoubtedly used to the finer things in life.

"It doesn't even come close to comparing to the house Ronda and Seth have got," Bayley had said while they had been making the last finishing touches to make the place look at it's best before Ronda arrived.

"Don't be stupid," Elena had said in her thick Italian accent, laughing off the suggestion. "You know Ronda isn't like that. Yes, she has a house in Hollywood, but that doesn't mean she's going to look down on us or our apartment. She is our friend."

"You're right," Bayley had conceded. "I just feel a bit nervous, you know?"

"Well you shouldn't," Elena said. "Just enjoy the day. We'll order in food, drink some wine and have a good time."

After they had decided they were happy with the way their home looked, they had settled down together on the couch to wait for Ronda's arrival. With more than an hour to spare before the agreed upon time, they had decided to catch up on the show that the former wrestler, now actress was now starring in as the President, Melissa Shaw. Executive Orders was proving to be one of the hottest shows on TV of late, but with the busy schedule wrestlers had to work it was hard for Bayley and Elena to keep up with the weekly episodes.

"She plays the part so well," Elena said as the episode they were watching neared its conclusion, to herself as much as to her girlfriend. The episode had centred around the US Military, at the order of President Shaw, destroying an Iranian laboratory where bio weapons had been under development. The final scene was set in the Oval Office at the White House, with the President being debriefed on the successful mission by her senior generals and the directors of the intelligence agencies.

"To conclude, the mission was a total success, Madam President," one of the generals said proudly.

"Good work, everyone," President Shaw said. Then, with a sigh, she added, "Thank God none of the world's superpowers would ever consider the idea of a bio weapons program."

The Director of the CIA suddenly had a hint of nervousness about him. "Actually, Madam President," he said with a grimace, "That's not entirely accurate."

"Oh shoot!" Bayley said as the episode ended with President Shaw fixing her subordinate with one of her trademark icy glares. "He was saying there's an American bio weapons program."

"I'm so glad we're watching it on Netflix," Elena said, hooked by the cliffhanger, exactly as the writers of the show had intended. "We don't have to wait a week for the next episode to find out what's going to happen. Quick, put the next one on."

Bayley did as asked, starting the next episode. "We're not going to have time to watch all of this one before she arrives, but we can at least start it."

"Working with Ronda again is going to be great," Elena said while they watched the summary of what had happened on the previous show. "That storyline we had last time was so much fun, and she did so much to put me over. I can't wait to work with her again. Picking back up where we left off is the best thing Hunter could have done."

"You have a crush on Ronda," Bayley said slyly, teasing.

"I do not," Elena said, maybe a little too defensively.

"Sure you don't," Bayley said sarcastically, enjoying having her girlfriend on the hook. "I saw how you kissed her when you had her tied up that time. You enjoyed it. Mind you, that might have been the bondage aspect as much as anything."

"Okay, you got me, I enjoyed kissing her. But not as much as I enjoy kissing you," Elena said, deciding to resort to teasing herself.

"I'll remember that," Bayley said, feigning annoyance. "All I can say is, I better not see you kissing her again this time."

"No promises," Elena said, having completely turned the tables on her girlfriend now. "If Hunter tells me to kiss her, I have to kiss her."

"It won't be as good as this," Bayley said, reaching in for a kiss of her own.

While they enjoyed their passionate kiss, the episode of Executive Orders started with President Shaw being given a tour of a bio weapons facility by a general and group of military personnel who ran the project. Having the Commander-in-Chief in close proximity to lethal diseases was a real nightmare for the Secret Service, which was why there were several agents following close behind. Everyone was dressed in full hazmat suits as an extra, but necessary precaution. The President was still easily recognisable with the full face mask on thanks to the distinctive mole on her cheek.

"Thank you for the tour, professor, and for the detailed explanation about the project," President Shaw said to the woman who had done most of the talking about the bio weapons program after the tour was completed. With real authority, she ordered, "Now shut it down. Shut the whole thing down."

"But Madam President," one of the generals tried to object, only to be cut off.

"I said shut it down, now," the President said, real steel in her eyes behind the mask.

At that moment there was a loud knock on the door of Bayley and Elena's apartment. Bayley quickly paused the TV show and said, "I'm not surprised people tell Ronda they would vote for her once they've confused her for her character. I'd vote for Melissa Shaw."

"That must be her now," Elena said, getting up and walking over to answer the door.

Outside in the ninth floor hallway, Ronda waited for someone to open the door. From what she had seen from outside, and so far from the interior of the apartment block, she was glad about the fact that her friends seemed to have found a nice place to live. An apartment block was an apartment block, but at least this was a relatively new and stylish one. Built in the middle of San Jose, she imagined the apartments didn't come cheap, and knowing Elena in particular, she imagined that not much money had been spared by her friends in how they had decorated and furnished their home. She also imagined they might feel a little uneasy to have her as a visitor, after they had seen the house in the Hollywood hills that she and Seth owned. Dispelling that feeling of unease was the first thing she wanted to do. Despite what some people thought, she was not a materialistic person and had no intention of looking down on her friends. Believing that good things should happen to good people, all that mattered to her was that Bayley and Elena were happy together.

"Ronda, hey!" Elena said excitedly when she opened the door and saw her friend in person for the first time in months.

"Daga, great to see you," Ronda smiled before they exchanged the traditional Italian greeting of a peck on both cheeks.

"Come in, please," Elena said, standing aside to allow her guest to enter the apartment.

Ronda saw as she walked in that the living area and kitchen were all part of one huge room, separated by a breakfast bar. As she had suspected, the decoration was tasteful, in a modern style. The most notable, eye-catching thing was a large, framed professional photograph of Elena and Bayley together, looking like the two happiest people on Earth - one cute as button, the other all Mediterranean good looks. "This is a really nice place," she said before even greeting Bayley. "And that picture is amazing. You guys look so good together."

"Thanks. We love that picture," Bayley said warmly, stepping forward and offering a hug. "It's great to see you, Ron."

"I missed you, Bay," Ronda said as they embraced. "How have you been?"

"Really good," Bayley said happily. They parted, and she asked, "How about you?"

"I'm good, too. Looking forward to getting back to WWE after so long. Only a couple of weeks to go now." As she was speaking, she had noticed the frozen shot of her own face behind the mask on the TV screen, knowing which scene it was immediately. With a laugh, she said, "You're watching Executive Orders."

"We are," Elena said as Ronda took her leather jacket off. "We really love the show, but it's hard to keep up since we have to watch it together. Let me take your jacket," she offered.

"You really did a great job as President Shaw," Bayley said, meaning it. She could see that particular role being the one that convinced the doubters on Ronda's ability as an actresses, taking her career to the next level.

"Thanks," Ronda smiled. "I really enjoy playing her, and I'm so happy they commissioned us for a second season."

"Shall we go and sit out on the balcony?" Elena suggested after hanging Ronda's jacket up near the front door.

"Sure," Ronda agreed, looking out through the large glass doors that lead out onto the balcony. "It's a lovely day, and you have a great view from up here."

"We also have wine," Bayley said, heading for the kitchen.

"We were thinking about having a cheat day and ordering some food in," Elena added, making it sound like a question as much as an idea as she turned off the TV.

"Great idea," Ronda said, following the Italian over to the doors that opened onto the balcony. "A day in the sun, drinking wine and eating something incredibly bad for us. What could be a better way of spending a day off?"

"Well, exactly," Elena laughed.

The trio were soon settled at the table out on the balcony. They spent a while catching up with what had been going on in each other's personal lives over recent months, enjoying plenty of laughs along the way. Pizza was selected as the cheat meal of choice - Bayley ordering it in from a local place they had found to serve particularly nice food.

"Thanks," Ronda said when Elena set a plate in front of her with her slices of the huge pizza on it. "So, what do you know about our storyline? I spoke to Hunter and Steph about it a bit over dinner not long ago, but some of the details were still in the process of being worked out."

Elena's excitement about the upcoming storyline showed right from the first word as she started to speak about it. "I was told we're carrying on from where we left off with your retirement match, with our characters still absolutely hating each other. There will be a clause in your contract to say that if I lay a finger on you, I will be instantly fired by WWE. That's where the mysterious figure dressed all in black comes into it."

"That part really intrigues me," Bayley said after her first mouthful of pizza. "Apparently they've not made a final decision on who that's going to be."

"I think it's a good addition to the story," Ronda said. "I wouldn't have been happy if they had just said Daga was going to kidnap me again. That would've made me look weak and stupid. But if she has had someone else do it - someone I wouldn't have thought posed any threat to me, then it's perfectly conceivable that they might have been able to knock me out and tie me up or whatever."

"And you're not put off by the idea of being tied up again?" Elena asked a little cautiously. "You were not exactly hyped about it last time, as I remember it."

Ronda shrugged. "WWE are paying me as an actress now, when you think about it. I'm no good to them as a wrestler. If they can come up with a good storyline for me without me being able to get physical with anyone, good for them. I'm sure the filming won't be the most pleasant experience I've ever had, but I do like working with you, you know that. Both of us being heels and essentially teaming up will be a lot of fun."

"I wish I could be a part of it," Bayley said over the top of her wine glass.

"Who said you won't?" Elena asked with a note of mischief. "Maybe you'll be the figure in black who kidnaps Ronda?"

Bayley's eyes lit up. "I hadn't even thought about that. Do you think they'd really do that?"

"Why not?" Elena said, making it clear that she thought it was possible.

"A heel Bayley?" Ronda said doubtfully.

"I'd like the chance to try a heel run, if it meant teaming with the two of you," Bayley said, surprising Ronda a little. "I was thinking they would pick Charlotte for that role, though. She's being billed as your friend, Ronda. She's the obvious choice to be helping you out with your devious little plot to gain control of Smackdown."

"Whoever they choose, it's going to be great when I reveal that I've chosen Ronda Rousey to be the new GM, thanks to the document I made Stephanie sign in exchange for releasing Ronda, of all people," Elena said. "No one will see that coming."

It had struck Ronda several times during the day's conversations that Elena's use of English had improved a lot over the past year or so. What was strange was that on WWE programming she still talked in the rather awkward, broken way she had always done. "Daga, I've noticed you're pretty much fluent in English now," Ronda began.

Thinking that was all she was going to say, Elena cut in. "Thank you. Bayley has helped me a lot since we've been together."

Ronda smiled, but went on with her original intended question. "Right, but what I was going to say was, why don't you talk like that on TV? The way your character talks hasn't changed."

"Hunter asked me not to change," Elena explained. "He said he'd grown to like the way I talked with a heavy accent and mixed some words up. He said it made me sound like a villain from a James Bond movie."

Ronda burst out laughing at that and the other two joined in. "You know, he's exactly right. You do sound like a Bond villain."

"And she looks like one, too," Bayley said, proud of the beautiful woman she was with.

Grinning, Ronda said, "Everyone's a winner. Teaming up with a Bond villain is quite the prospect. I can't wait to get started."

Thinking of the push that was bound to result from an alliance with Ronda as well as the chance to work with her friend, Elena's eyes gleamed as she said, "Neither can I."


	3. Chapter 3

"A year, almost to the day," Ronda said. "It's crazy how time flies, isn't it?"

"It is," Seth agreed, shaking his head at the rather scary thought.

They had just walked into the arena where Summerslam was going to take place. It had been at that pay-per-view the previous year that Ronda had wrestled her final match. Now, a year on, she was going to return at WWE's second biggest event of the year as a manager for her friend Charlotte Flair as she made her main roster debut.

"I expected to feel a bit sad, being back here and knowing that I can't wrestle," Ronda said as they walked along the hallway.

"But you don't?" Seth inquired.

Ronda looked at him and smiled. "No. I'm just looking forward to seeing all of the women in the locker room, and being back out there in front of the fans again. Plus the storyline they've given me is quite a good one. Everyone's going to be trying to guess who the figure dressed in black is. Shit, Daga and I don't even know who it's going to be, and we're going to be filming it in a couple of weeks or so."

Seth laughed. "I still can't believe you told me Bayley said she wants it to be her. If there was anyone I thought would play a face her entire career, it's her."

"I know!" Ronda exclaimed. "But I think she really likes the idea of getting to work with Daga. It's pretty obvious they're never going to turn her face; she's too good as a heel. So, if Bayley wants to team with her, she would have to be the one who turns. Not that it's her decision of course. I think they might give it to Charlotte and turn her heel. Everyone knows we're friends, so it would make sense if she was revealed as the one who had helped me with my devious plan to take over Smackdown."

"Or it could be someone from left field," Seth pondered. "It could be someone like Paige, or even Nikki. Like you said about Charlotte, people know you're friends."

Nikki Bella was in fact Ronda's oldest friend in WWE. They had shared a locker room back in the days when Ronda had first joined the company as a referee, and had formed a friendship that had stood the test of time, despite the many differences in the two women's personalities.

"I don't think they would give it to Nikki, but you never know," Ronda said thoughtfully.

"They even thought to take my character off-screen for Smackdown for a few weeks while that angle plays out," Seth said. "I guess Hunter figured it wouldn't make much sense for me to be on the show, apparently not caring that you had been abducted. And of course they couldn't have me trying to come to your aid again because that would ruin the angle."

"You are still going to come to the shows your not used on though, right?" Ronda asked, wondering how she had failed to consider that possibility before.

"Of course," Seth said. "And I thought I might come with you when you film the scenes with Daga and whoever they decide the figure in black will be when you film those scenes, unless they have me booked to appear elsewhere the same day."

"That would be good," Ronda said with a smile. "We can get the filming out of the way, then you and I can go to a restaurant somewhere, then find an expensive hotel room."

"Where we can work off the calories," Seth said, pretending that he was finishing her sentence for her.

They reached their locker room as Ronda raised an eyebrow and gave him a long, drawn out, tolerant, "Yes." Then she changed the subject. "The main thing is I'm back on the road with you."

Leading the way into the locker room, Seth held the door open for her to wheel her case into the room. "I know what you mean," he said. "It does get hard being away from you so much. Long nights in hotel rooms with a video call as the only way to see you."

Hearing that made Ronda feel bad, thinking that maybe she should be trying harder to spend more time with her man. After all, she was the one who had been away from WWE for so long, thanks to taking on the role in Executive Orders and working for her charity The Rousey Foundation, among other things. That was definitely a big consideration when the time came to talk about her contract renewal. Seth would not be retiring from the ring any time soon, which meant that if she left the company they were guaranteed to be spending a lot of their time apart. Sitting down on the bench that ran along the back wall of their locker room, she let out a deep sigh.

"That's a big sigh," Seth said, looking over at her as he arranged both of their cases in the corner of the room.

"Come and sit with me," Ronda said, surprising Seth with how depressed she suddenly sounded.

"What's wrong?" he asked, showing real concern as he sat down beside her and put and arm around her shoulders.

Nestling against him, Ronda rested her head on his shoulder. Being held by her husband immediately made her feel better, such was the love she felt for him. "I'm feeling bad because I've been away for so long doing other things, when we would have been together if I'd have been here. I'm sorry, baby."

"Hey, don't apologise to me," Seth said, giving her a kiss on the forehead. "Why should you give up the charity work and your acting career to spend time with me? It's not like I've considering retiring from wrestling. We're both doing what we love. That's not something to be ashamed of."

"Maybe, but we should be spending more time together," Ronda said.

The conversation made Seth think back to another recent conversation: the one that had taken place over dinner with Hunter and Stephanie at The Venice Steakhouse. "That's another reason why renewing your WWE contract is a good idea," he pointed out. "Hunter said he wants your role as Smackdown GM to be a long-term thing, and obviously I'm on the show as well. We'd be spending at the very least one night together every week. And we get a private locker room when you're here. Honestly, that's the main thing."

"You're right, we would be guaranteed time with each other," Ronda said, ignoring his attempt at a joke. What was on her mind was the fact that knew full well that her agent had other ideas with regard to her future. In his opinion, she had risen above WWE thanks to the success of Executive Orders - a role that he had succeeded in negotiating for her. His advice was that she should quit the wrestling business for good and spend her time working on projects which would bring much bigger rewards, both in terms of finance and reputation. "I don't think Rob sees it that way," she pointed out.

"Who cares what he thinks?" Seth said. While it was true that Rob Sinclair had done a good job for Ronda on some things, Seth had little time for the guy, finding him abrasive and arrogant. Trying to persuade Ronda not to re-sign with WWE was hardly likely to improve that situation. "He's your agent, not your boss. He's there to do what you tell him, when it's all said and done. Yes, he can give you advice or advise you on possible deals that he can work out for you, but the final yes or no is always yours. If you instruct him in no uncertain terms that you want to stay here, he has to make it happen and get you the best deal. That his job, not to tell you what you're going to do with your life."

"I know that," Ronda said, pulling away from him slightly so that she could look him in the eye. "Do you really think I'd let someone tell me what I was going to do on something as big as this? You know me better than that."

"I'm not saying you'd let him tell you what to do, no," Seth said. "But I do think you might be putting a bit too much importance on what he has to say."

"Seth, when the time come to talk about it, I'll be making my own decision about whether I sign a new contract or not. Trust me on that," Ronda said decisively.

Seth smiled, glad to see her returning to her usual feisty self. "I trust you," he assured her.

With that conversation behind them, they set about getting their outfits ready to change into before the show, chatting away happily as they did so. A few minutes later, Ronda announced that she was going to go and meet up with the rest of the women in their locker room.

"Okay, I'll see you later," Seth said. "Bring me a coffee on your way back, please."

"Anything for my man," Ronda said happily, giving him a peck on the cheek.

"Anything?" Seth asked, sounding annoyed with himself. "I really undersold myself with a cup of coffee."

"Ha! Too late to change your mind now," Ronda said, quickly heading for the door.

After the door closed behind her, Seth chuckled to himself, glad about the fact that he had been able to cheer his wife up so quickly.

* * *

Ronda didn't make it as far as the women's locker room before she encountered Charlotte Flair, the daughter of her late mentor, her new on-screen understudy, and most importantly her friend. "Charlotte," she called out, seeing her emerge from the women's restroom further along the hallway.

Recognising the voice, Charlotte already had a broad smile on her face as she turned around. "Ronda," she said happily. "Welcome back. How are you?"

"I'm doing well," Ronda said. The two women hugged each other briefly as an additional greeting. "Ready to start the next chapter, as a manager. I get to see you kill it in your debut from the best spot in the house. I think you and Daga could steal the show tonight."

"Thank. I really hope so," Charlotte said, smiling again. "I have to admit, I'm a bit nervous about making my debut on such a big stage."

"I know a thing or two about being thrown in at the deep end," Ronda said, thinking back to her own debut on the Raw episode the night after Wrestlemania 31, in front of the most raucous crowd of the year.

"That's true," Charlotte said, remembering exactly the same thing herself. "How did you get past the nerves?"

Ronda was taken by surprise at being put on the spot. The tone Charlotte had used and the way she was looking at her told her that she was suddenly being considered a mentor of sorts herself, as if from nowhere. Being thought of in that way wasn't something that she had much experience with. She felt that whatever answer she came up with wasn't going to be adequate, whereas back when she had been working with Ric, he had always seemed to know the right thing to say in any given situation. "All I can remember is Seth telling me to go out there and enjoy myself," she said awkwardly. "Then I just got in the zone, got my game face on, went out there and damn near took Nikki's head off her shoulders with a clothesline. It was over almost before I had time to think about any of it. I'm sorry, apparently I'm shit at giving out advice," she said regretfully.

"I don't think trying to go out there and enjoy it is bad advice," Charlotte said pleasantly, although she had hoped for a bit more insight from someone who had been there and done it all before. "Where are you heading?" she asked, deciding to move the conversation on.

"To your locker room," Ronda said.

"Great, that's what I thought," Charlotte said, starting to lead the way. "I know Daga's hyped that you're back. She's hardly talked about anything else since I got here. It's kind of sweet how much she likes working with you."

With a slightly embarrassed smile, Ronda said, "I did try my best to put her over in what turned out to be my last rivalry. I know it meant a lot to her that I wrestled her in my last match, and she went over. She really was a class act the whole time; taking care of me in the ring because she knew my neck was fucked, saying some really nice things to me in the ring after the match ended and arranging for Andrea Bocelli to come and sing for me at my send off. I couldn't have asked for the whole thing to go better." Still thinking about the way that Charlotte had looked to her for help, she added, "I guess it's time for me to start trying to give back. I can't wrestle anymore, but maybe I can be of some help to those of you who are just starting out. I've never really thought of myself as the kind of the person who could be a mentor, like your dad was to me. I should probably start considering it."

"I wasn't trying to pressure you into that," Charlotte said quickly. "I was just asking for a bit of advice is all. But I would like to work with you, if you'd be up for it. Obviously it would make it easier that we've been friends for years already. I was actually thinking the other week about how much experience we've lost in the women's division in the last year or two, with people leaving or retiring. Nikki and Paige are the only really experienced ones left."

"I'm not really all that experienced myself," Ronda admitted. "I think people forget that I didn't actually wrestle for all that long, certainly not compared to someone like Nikki. My career took off so quickly, I was getting offers to do movies before I knew what was going on. When I look back at it, I can see why I lost my way a bit. I'm so lucky your dad was there to get me back on track. I really think my career would have ended up flopping if he hadn't taken me under his wing, and it probably wouldn't have worked out between Seth and I, either. I really miss your dad, Char," she said, feeling herself choking up at the thought.

Charlotte stopped walking, closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. It was the only way she could keep herself under control. "I miss him, too," she said once she felt a little more composed. "I've been thinking about him all day today, Ronda. I wish he could have been her to see me tonight."

"He will be here," Ronda said gently, but sincerely. "I always believed my dad watched my matches and felt proud of me. I know Ric's already proud of you for following in his footsteps."

"Thank you for saying that, it means so much to me," Charlotte said, wiping a tear from her eye.

"I meant it," Ronda said with a kind smile. "But don't cry. Today is a good day, a day to enjoy. Like I said, you and Daga are going to tear the house down out there."

"And we get to find out who's got the part as the figure dressed in black," Charlotte said, trying her best to brighten up as Ronda had suggested as they carried on walking.

"We do?" Ronda asked, taken totally by surprise by that statement. "That's news to me."

"Oh, I thought that was why you were coming to the locker room. Hunter's coming to see us shortly to tell us about it. I bet he'll be sending a runner to get you any minute now."

Seeing that they were approaching the women's locker room, Ronda said, "Well, he won't have to. I wonder who's going to get the part?"

"I hope it's me," Charlotte said. "I'd love to team with you and Daga. But whoever it is, we'll be finding out real soon."


	4. Chapter 4

"How is everyone?" Ronda asked when she walked into the women's locker room. She saw several familiar faces and a couple of new ones. It was flattering to her ego that everyone seemed enthusiastic about her presence, making her think that being a part of the locker room was something else she had missed during the extended period she had spent away from the company. Whether she counted these people as personal friends or not, it was good to see them all. The first person to offer a hug was definitely a friend.

"Ronda, welcome back. I really missed you," Nikki Bella said warmly.

"Thanks, Nikki. I missed you too," Ronda said, accepting the embrace from the current Women's Champion. "You look great," she added as they parted again, meaning it. Nikki looked like she was in the best shape of her life. "Marriage must be treating you well."

"Thank you, it is," Mrs Cena smiled. She and John had tied the knot several months earlier, in a typically lavish and well publicised ceremony that Seth and Ronda had attended. "I'm feeling on top of my game right now, I'm enjoying my run with the belt, and I'm ready to take on your new team, assuming Hunter has that in mind of course."

"Speaking of my team, we've got to get that far first," Ronda said, turning to Elena D'Agostino, who had also approached her. "Hey, Daga. Time for me to go at it with the Bond villain again," she grinned.

"If only we could," Elena said with a hint of disappointment. Her favourite matches had been against Ronda, but there was no chance of that ever happening again. "Even so, this story is going to be great, and I can't wait to wrestle Charlotte tonight. It's a match I've been looking forward to."

"You've been looking forward to it?" Charlotte asked, seeming to find that fact surprising. "The honour is all mine, Daga."

"We might be teammates soon," Elena said, referring to the infamous woman in black character whose identity they were soon to discover when Hunter arrived.

"No way, it has to be me," Bayley said. Her statement was met with laughter from almost everyone in the room. "What?" she asked them defiantly. "You don't think I can play a bad guy?"

"No, Bay, we don't," Paige chuckled, joining the group. "Hello, Ronda. Welcome back."

"Paige," Ronda said pleasantly to the woman who at one time she had not gotten along with at all. Heated words had been traded in both directions before they had finally managed to shake hands and agree to put their differences behind them.

There were two people in the room who Ronda hadn't met before, although she had seen them on NXT shows. They were standing back a little, seemingly a little reluctant to join in with the conversation. Ronda got the impression that they were worried that she might not be approachable to people who had only recently made the step up from the minor leagues, thinking that she might look down on them as though they were beneath her. In the past, they might even have had a point if that was what they were thinking, but not anymore. She stepped away from the group that had gathered around her and held her hand out to the first of the other two women. "Sasha, Ronda Rousey."

"It's good to meet you," Sasha said, taking her hand and shaking it firmly, maybe feeling like she had something to prove with the strength of her handshake.

"Christ. Crush my fucking hand why don't you?" Ronda said, wanting to make her new acquaintance feel like they could share a joke.

"Sorry," Sasha said, grinning.

"No crushing from me," Alexa Bliss said as she offered her own hand. "I'm Alexa Bliss."

The diminutive woman seemed a little bit starstruck to Ronda, but she realised she might have been imagining that. "Hey, Alexa," she said pleasantly.

"Great to meet you, Ronda," Alexa said.

"It's really is thin on the ground in the women's division right now, isn't it?" Ronda asked, looking around the room. "Seven female wrestlers is all they have, and three of them are recently called up from NXT. I'm not saying you guys aren't doing great work, but there really is no depth at all."

"No, you're right," Bayley said. "We've been really unlucky with injuries and stuff this past year or so. First you had to retire, then Sarita decided she wasn't going to come back after having her baby. We've got Becky and Nia out with long term injuries as well, and they chose that time to send Emma off to film one of their WWE movie projects. We're low on numbers right now, but it'll get better."

"And you're here now," Alexa put in. "I know you can't wrestle, but it's good to have a woman who's a big name on the show."

Ronda turned to her and smiled, genuinely appreciating the compliment. She also wondered if that was part of the reason Hunter had seemed so keen to bring up the renewal of her contract. He wanted to know he had one of his stars tied to the company for a number of years, not a number of months. "Thanks, Alexa," she said. "That means a lot."

Paige looked like she might have been trying not to roll her eyes, but Ronda let it slide. She knew Paige didn't like the way the fans, and apparently some of the NXT stars, looked up to her. Again, she found herself considering the fact that, despite what Paige might believe, she was a role model of sorts to people like Alexa. That meant she could maybe be of some help in terms of mentoring Alexa, or even someone else, just like Ric Flair had done for her in the past. She decided to have a private chat with Hunter when the opportunity presented itself and see what he thought of the idea.

Only a couple of minutes later, the boss arrived at the locker room. After knocking loudly on the door, he called out, "Is everyone presentable in there?"

"We're dressed, but I don't know about presentable," Ronda called back, setting Elena and Nikki off giggling.

"I can tell you're back, Ronda," Hunter quipped as he walked in and closed the door behind him, drawing more laughter. "Good afternoon, everyone," he said next as they all gathered around to listen to what he had to say.

Everyone returned the greeting politely, then Ronda said, "Hunter, before we get into talking about the storyline, can I ask for a minute with you when we're done here, please?"

"No problem," Hunter said. "Okay, as you all know, the reason I'm here is to fill you in on the plans for the storyline that we're going to start tonight with Ronda's return as Charlotte's manager, ultimately leading to her taking over from Steph as GM of Smackdown. More specifically, I'm sure you're wanting to know who we've decided to give the role as the mysterious woman in black to. That person will be shown to have kidnapped Ronda, seemingly on behalf of Daga, and will then go on to be a part of stable that forms when the entire plot is revealed and Ronda is named as the new GM."

"Don't keep us in suspense," Nikki said, pretending to scold him.

"We thought long and hard about it," Hunter said, deliberately doing exactly what Nikki had asked him not do. "And the decision we made was that..."

Ronda found herself grinning at the masterful job he was doing of making them wait.

"Bayley, it's you," Hunter said, giving her a broad smile.

Bayley squealed in a combination of surprise and delight and bounced into her girlfriend's arms, overjoyed at the fact that they were going to team with each other. It was impossible for everyone else in the room not to feel happy for her, even if they had wanted the role she had just been given themselves, and maybe even doubted her ability to perform as a heel character. "Oh my, I can't believe it," Bayley was babbling excitedly.

"This is going to be so good," Elena said over Bayley's shoulder as they held each other. "Hunter, thank you for this. We were really hoping for the chance to team with each other."

"You're welcome," Hunter said, letting out a small laugh at Bayley's reaction to the news. "I was going to ask you one more time if you have a problem with turning heel, Bayley, but I think I have that answer. I have faith in you that you can pull off what could be one of the best and most surprising heel turns in recent memory."

"Thanks, Hunter. I won't let you down," Bayley promised him, trying to compose herself a little as she pulled away from Elena and turned back to face the boss.

"Charlotte, you look disappointed," Hunter noted.

"I am," Charlotte admitted frankly. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm happy for Bayley and Daga that they get the chance to team with each other, but I would have liked to team with Ronda."

Hearing her friend sounding downcast, Ronda said, "I'm sure there will be another time."

"Actually, she's right," Hunter said. "Further down the line, we're going to add another woman to the stable, and that's going to be you, Charlotte."

"Oh," Charlotte said, instantly a lot more upbeat as she looked over at her soon-to-be partners. "That sounds awesome. I can't wait for that."

"We kick some asses, yes?" Elena asked, talking in the manner she did when she was in character. There was a smile on her face as she spoke.

"For sure," Charlotte agreed with a laugh.

For her part, Ronda felt down about the fact that she couldn't get in on the physical action. Taking on a role that involved being at ringside and watching the other girls have all the fun was not going to be easy at all. That realisation had just hit home big time. Silently cursing her injured neck for letting her down, she tried to put on a happy front for her delighted friends and teammates while Hunter carried on speaking.

"That gives us a team of four ladies - three who can wrestle," he was saying. "Needless to say, we need opponents for them to face. For that reason, we're going to see an alliance against common enemies gradually being formed between Nikki, Paige and Emma. She'll be returning soon, and we're going to use that return to turn her face."

Ronda was tempted to speak up about the fact that Alexa and Sasha hadn't been included in the plans, but she managed to convince herself to keep her mouth shut, remembering that the booking was none of her business. She was there as an actress and nothing more.

"When and where do we film the scenes where we're holding Ronda captive?" Elena asked.

"I can give you and Bayley a day off from house shows whenever, so it comes down to when you're free, Ronda. Do you have a day available next week that we can work with?"

"Uh, yeah," Ronda said, caught unawares by the question. "Thursday or Friday works for me."

"Okay then, unless you hear different, let's say we're going for Thursday. I'll have some travel sent to you all, and I'll text you with the address you need to go to. We're going to film at one of our producer's houses. She has a basement that should be ideal for what we need to film."

"Oh, who is it?" Bayley asked, excitable as ever.

"Alice West," Hunter said.

Ronda remembered the woman in question, by her first name at least. She was the producer who had worked with her and Elena on the first abduction scenes they had filmed the year before at warehouse out in the ass end of nowhere. "I remember her, she's the one who looks like a pixie," Ronda blurted out before thinking about what she was saying.

Everyone in the room burst out laughing and Hunter diplomatically said, "Yes, I think we're talking about the same person. You've worked with her before, obviously."

"Yeah, she worked with us on the abduction scenes last time," Ronda said. "She seemed like she didn't take any shit. I quite liked her."

Hunter clicked his fingers as Ronda's words jogged his memory. "Of course. That was one of the trial runs I gave her when I was trying to decide whether to promote her from working on NXT or not."

Paige said, "And you decided if she could handle Ronda, she must be doing something right."

Ronda knew there was humour in the comment, but she still gave the English woman a withering look.

"Alright, if there's nothing else?" Hunter asked to wrap up the conversation. No one said anything. "Good, thanks everyone," he said. "Ronda, you wanted to speak to me? Shall we step outside?"

"Okay," Ronda said, following him to the door.

"What can I do for you?" Hunter asked once they were out in the relative privacy of the hallway.

Taking a moment before saying anything, Ronda tried to think of a way to put what she wanted to say. "I was thinking earlier when I was introducing myself to Alexa that she seemed like she looked up to me. Plus I was speaking to Charlotte before and we were talking about Ric. I mentioned how much he did for me when he was mentoring me, and then I got to thinking that maybe I could mentor someone like Alexa, if you thought it was a good idea?"

Hunter took a second to think about the offer before responding. As soon as he spoke, Ronda could tell the answer was going to be negative. "I don't think it's a terrible idea, but the thing is, you're not contractually committed to us long term at the moment. I couldn't put someone with you and then have you leave the company in a few months. That would send out the wrong kind of message."

"But I said we could talk about my contract soon," Ronda objected.

Hunter nodded. "You did, but you didn't make it clear that you intend to stay. If you sign a new deal we can revisit this, but for now I'm afraid it's a no." He didn't enjoy being firm with Ronda on something like that, but the point he had made about her leaving while mentoring someone was true. In any case, he felt the need to send the message that he was not particularly pleased about her lack of positivity towards renewing her contract.

"Right," Ronda mumbled, feeling harshly treated.

They said their goodbyes, but she wasn't really paying attention anymore. All she could think about was that this whole contract renewal thing was starting to get on her nerves. Maybe she had offended Hunter, the man who had always supported her, by not being more clear about wanting to stay, but her agent had instructed her not to do that, saying that it would put them at a disadvantage when it came to negotiating a deal. That did make sense. If WWE knew she was going to stay, why would they make a good offer? But then, was it worth ruffling feathers by appearing indifferent to the people and the company that had always had her back?

"Maybe I'll just say fuck it and leave," she said to herself in frustration.


	5. Chapter 5

"You're going to do great," Ronda said, hoping that her positive words would help her friend a little. Charlotte Flair was moments away from her main roster debut, and at Summerslam no less. The nerves that she was obviously suffering were understandable.

Meanwhile, Ronda was looking forward to her music hitting and taking the fans by surprise. She had checked Twitter ten minutes earlier and had been happy to see no mention of her name in connection to the event. Somehow, WWE had managed to keep her return a secret. That would make the impending reaction so much better.

"Thanks for the encouragement," Charlotte said as she went through some final warm up stretches. Out in the arena, Elena D'Agostino's music was playing her to the ring while she received the typical hostile reaction from the crowd.

"Fifteen, twenty minutes from now, we'll all be back here talking about how good the match was," Ronda assured the soon-to-be debutant.

"I really hope so," Charlotte said, taking in a deep breath for composure. As she looked at her friend, she noticed something new about her appearance. There was a silver necklace or chain around her neck. "Is that a new chain? I didn't see it earlier."

Ronda pulled the chain out from under her T-shirt so that she could show it to Charlotte, revealing that her wedding ring was on the chain. "The only thing I can really do to get physical now is throw a punch. I need to hit Daga before the finish of your match. Since I'm a leftie, I don't want to risk hitting her with my ring. Leaving it behind back here would have made me feel weird somehow; it's been so long since I took it off. So, I decided to borrow this chain from Nikki. I'll get one of my own tomorrow, so I can always wear my ring like this when I'm managing you or in any other situation when Hunter might have me involved in the action."

"I think that's really sweet," Charlotte said, glad that something had made her smile before she went to the ring.

It was time for the chatter to stop. Out in the arena, Elena was already into her promo, running down Charlotte and making light of her main roster credentials. Apparently she could only see the night ending in one of two ways for her opponent: going to back to NXT with an ass kicking and her tail between her legs, or going to hospital with those legs broken.

Ronda knew what her cue was going to be, when her music would hit and presumably take the roof off of the arena.

"Charlotte, get out here," Elena ordered in what she now called her Bond villain accent. "I have a bottle of champagne and a message waiting for me after I beat you. Let's get it done, yes?"

There was no reaction other than a few more boos from the fans. Elena expressed her frustration with a angry sentence in Italian that was lost on the vast majority of the audience, however her tone and stereotypical Italian hand gestures got the message across. "Is there anyone who's not afraid of me?" she asked theatrically. That was the cue.

When her music hit, Ronda noticed that it took a second or two for the loud cheer to fully materialise as people took a moment to realise whose music was playing. After so long away from the wrestling business, it felt great to hear the fans go crazy for her once again. She walked out onto the stage, greeted by another roar of approval. Although almost everyone in the arena had to know that she was no longer physically capable of wrestling a match, they still seemed to be relishing the prospect of her having another confrontation with her nemesis Elena D'Agostino.

In order to make her character look angry, she made no attempt to acknowledge any of the fans who were sitting along the aisle. Instead, she marched quickly to the ring and climbed up the steps. Her plan had been to get a microphone and launch right into what she had to say, but she should have known better than to think that would happen. By the time she had the microphone in hand, the fans were already enthusiastically chanting her name. Her music was quickly faded out so that the audience at home could fully experience the reaction she was getting.

While Ronda looked around at the fans, trying her best not to break character by smiling, Elena stood across the ring from her with a look of hatred and fury on her face, partly at the interruption, and partly at the fact that the enemy she thought she had vanquished had now reappeared.

The chanting of Ronda's name began to fade away, but it was rapidly replaced with another chant, this time, "Welcome back!" For some reason, Ronda found that more touching than the cheering or the chanting of her name.

"Shut up!" Elena ordered the fans heatedly, having had the last of her patience worn down. "Ronda, what do you think you're doing here?" she demanded.

Her outburst turned the cheering and chanting into boos, which Ronda decided to use as an opportunity to start speaking. "You asked if there was anyone here who's not afraid of you," she pointed out. "One thing's for sure, I'm not afraid of you," she said aggressively. Another loud cheer was the result.

"You're not afraid of me?" Elena smirked. "I think you forget who retired you, Ronda, huh? I injured your neck, I beat you in your last match, I ended Ronda Rousey." More boos rained down.

"It don't look like Ronda Rousey has been ended from where I'm standing," Ronda said. "In fact, it looks like Ronda Rousey is back in WWE. And the reason I'm back," she went on loudly, trying to make herself heard over the fans, "is that I decided if I can't come back and kick your ass again, the next best thing is to stand ringside while one of my closest friends does it. That's right, I've returned to manage Charlotte Flair." That announcement got a noticeably less enthusiastic response. Clearly people didn't really consider that a good enough use of Ronda. That didn't surprise her.

"You're here as a manager?" Elena asked, saying each word slowly to make the question sound as patronising as it possibly could be. "How pathetic. The 'great' Ronda Rousey is now a manager. Come on, you can do better than that. Fight me, Ronda. How do you say... for the sake of old times?"

"It's for old time's sake, you stupid bitch," Ronda said, setting the crowd off again. "And believe me, I would like nothing more than to for us to go at it right here, right now. But there's something you should know. Unfortunately, WWE were not as keen as keen on it. In fact, knowing the bad blood between us, and not wanting to risk potential legal action if I got hurt, they saw fit to add a clause to my contract. That clause states that if you, Elena, touch me in a violent way even once, you will be fired on the spot."

Elena looked furious at that revelation. "Maybe I find out if they're serious," she said threateningly, taking a step towards Ronda.

As soon as she did so, Charlotte's music hit and she came running out through the curtain. The crowd cheered her on as she slid under the bottom rope and went right for Elena, the two women frantically exchanging right hands as Ronda made her way to relative safety on the outside of the ring.

* * *

Before the match, Ronda had felt down about the fact that she could not and would not ever wrestle again, and had expected that fact to make standing at ringside a hard thing to do. But, happily, she had actually enjoyed the experience. As she had expected, Elena and Charlotte had put on a high quality match, with the more experienced heel having the upper hand for much of it.

After a small flurry of offense from Charlotte, Elena regained the upper hand with a vicious flying back elbow to the chest after countering an irish whip into the ropes. The referee had been knocked down moments before. With Charlotte and the official down, Ronda knew that the end of the match was at hand.

Ever the overconfident show off, Elena took the opportunity to run her mouth at her arch rival. "Ronda, I thought your friend was going to kick my ass?" she yelled from the middle of ring. "I ended you, now I'm going to end her."

Ronda got onto the apron, giving Elena some mouth in return. Suckered in, the Italian walked over there, bristling for a fight. Little did she know, Ronda had more than words in mind.

As soon as Elena was in range, Ronda swung a quick but powerful left hand, connecting flush with her jaw. The crowd exploded as the women they hated collapsed to the mat, close to being knocked out.

While this had been going on, Charlotte had been getting to her feet on the other side of the ring. Seeing that her opponent had been knocked down and was now groggily trying to get up, Charlotte poised herself to strike. The fans new what was coming.

As soon Elena regained her feet, Charlotte charged in like a freight train. A thunderous cheer greeted the connection of boot with face, and there was no doubt that the match was over, particularly as the referee was just coming to his senses.

Charlotte made the cover and the referee made the count, slower than usual because of the blow he had taken, but that made no difference to the outcome.

As Charlotte's music played and she began to celebrate her debut win, Ronda climbed into the ring to join her. Any sadness she might have felt about her own career being over paled into insignificance in that moment, seeing how much the victory meant to her friend, who pointed to the heavens for a moment to dedicate it to her father.

"He's very proud of you," Ronda said emotionally, opening her arms wide for a hug. "I am too," she added as Charlotte embraced her.

"Thank you, Ronda," Charlotte croaked out. "That means so much to me. All of this means so much to me."

Ronda managed a laugh, thinking of what a bright future Charlotte had ahead of her. Leaving no room for doubt, she said, "Girl, you're just getting started."

Maybe this managing idea would be enjoyable after all.


	6. Chapter 6

Seth, Bayley and Elena were the reception committee when Ronda and Charlotte walked back through the curtain. While Seth and Bayley applauded Charlotte's successful debut performance, Elena offered her a hug. "Amazing job," she said. "I knew the match would be great."

"Thanks, Daga," Charlotte said as they embraced. "It's still a bit overwhelming, but I really enjoyed it."

Meanwhile, Ronda had walked over to Seth and received a peck on the lips along with a smile. "How does it feel to be back?" he asked.

"Great," Ronda said happily. "I actually really enjoyed managing. And needless to say, that entrance and the promo with Daga brought back so many memories. In a way, it felt like I hadn't been away."

"I'm glad you enjoyed it," Seth said, putting an arm around her shoulders as she turned to face Elena, who approached them.

"I can tell you're back, Ronda," she grinned. "One match done and I nearly have a broken jaw."

"Very funny," Ronda said dryly. "I didn't even clench my fist."

"The punch looked convincing though," Bayley joined in. "Ronda, that reaction you got made my heart happy."

"Aww, thanks, Bay," Ronda said, feeling genuinely touched.

Stephanie McMahon appeared at that moment, approaching Charlotte first to offer congratulations. Elena and Bayley were drawn into that conversation, leaving Seth and Ronda to talk to each other. Looking at his wife, Seth noticed again the unfamiliar chain that he had seen her wearing as he had matched the match backstage. "What's this?" he asked, lifting it slightly with his fingers.

"The chain is Nikki's," Ronda said. She pulled the rest of it out from under her T-shirt, revealing that her wedding ring was attached to it. "I borrowed it last minute before we went to Gorilla. I didn't feel right when it came to taking my ring off, so this way I still kind of got to wear it. I think I'm going to buy a chain of my own so I can always wear it like this if I'm going to get involved in anything physical."

"I think that's really sweet," Seth said quietly so that no one else would overhear, knowing that would embarrass her. He emphasised his point with another kiss.

After a night of so many emotions, Ronda craved the most pleasant of releases. The trip back to the hotel could not start soon enough for her. "I love you, baby," she told him, letting him know with her sultry tone exactly what she was thinking.

Before Seth could reply, Stephanie walked over to them with a broad smile on her face. "Great job out there, Ronda. You must have enjoyed the welcome they gave you?"

Ronda nodded. "Definitely. It felt really good after so long away. I was wondering if people might have started forgetting about me to be honest."

Stephanie gave a single laugh. "I'm sure that was never likely to happen. The fans have always felt a special connection to you. I was wondering if that might factor into your decision on whether to renew with us."

 _It's a good job I like people who speak directly,_ Ronda thought. Stephanie had certainly done that. Although it was a compliment that both WWE's Chairman and CEO seemed eager to tie her down to a new deal, having it brought up so often was starting to get annoying. "It will be something I keep in mind when the time comes to discuss it," she promised.

Elena rejoined the conversation then, sparing any awkwardness. "If I have to, I'll make her sign it," she said with a grin, obviously having heard what was being discussed.

The women who had wrestled were ready to go back to the locker room. Deciding it might be best to join them, Ronda said, "I'll catch you later, Steph, or Tuesday if we don't see each other again tonight."

"See you," Stephanie said. She was glad that she managed not to let her emotions show. Hunter had asked her to mention the new contract situation once more, in the hope that it would elicit some kind of positive response. Non-committal would be a better way of describing what Ronda actually given her, and that was very frustrating.

"Congrats on getting the role of the woman in black, Bay. I heard the news flying around earlier," Seth said as the group walked away towards the locker rooms.

"Thanks, Seth," Bayley said warmly. "I didn't expect to get it, but I was hoping. I thought it would be you, Char," she said, turning to the latest addition to the main roster.

"I got second prize," Charlotte smiled, then she told Seth, "I'll be joining the team at a later date."

"Oh?" Seth asked, surprised by that revelation. "The four of you together makes one hell of a stable. It'll be great. The only concern I'd have there is how they're going to make strong enough opposition for you."

"I think Hunter's got that covered," Ronda said. "We've got to get that far first, anyway. It sounds like we're going to be filming the new hostage scenes on Thursday. We've got to go to one of the producer's houses, probably so we can film in her basement or something."

"It'll be interesting to see how you make it different to what you filmed last time," Seth said. "I know Hunter talked about how well people reacted to those first scenes, but if these new ones are too similar, it might fall a little flat."

"Don't worry about that, I've got it covered," Elena said with a devious little smile that was more befitting her on-screen character.

Ronda rolled her eyes. "What have I let myself in for here?"

Bayley had to laugh at that. "You should know by now, Daga doesn't do things in half measures."

"Oh, trust me, I know that," Ronda said. "I learned that last time we had to do this. And now I'm going to have both of you ganging up on me."

Trying her best to come up with an evil-looking smile of her own for the first time, Bayley said, "I can't wait."

Elena looked at her girlfriend with a proud expression on her face. "Look at that. She's a natural heel after all."

Ronda was too kind to say that she remained to be totally convinced about that, not wanting to demoralise her friend. It was all well and good that Bayley had gotten her wish to be cast as the woman in black, but she still had to deliver with her performances.

The group chatted away until they reached the women's locker room, where they parted ways as Seth and Ronda had their own room to go to. Once it was just the two of them, Seth said, "Steph and Hunter really are keen to get you signed to a new contract. The way she brought it up like that, she was obviously looking for you to put her mind at ease. You're kind of playing hard ball with them, especially after everything they did to help us with the Foundation."

Until then, Ronda hadn't really thought of it that way. It was was true that Hunter and Stephanie had helped out a lot with the launch of the Rousey Foundation, and had also been very good about promoting it on their shows when she had asked them to do so. Now that they needed something in return from her- namely her signature on a new contract - it seemed to them that she was holding out on them, and possibly ready to walk away from WWE altogether. It was impossible not to feel a little guilty about that, but she felt that she had to stick with her agent's advice for now. After all, it wasn't as if she actually was going to leave. She planned to instruct her agent that her wish was to remain; it was just up to him to negotiate the best terms for her to do so. "I hear what you're saying," she admitted. "But you already know I want to stay. It's just that Rob said it's best not to be too enthusiastic about it ahead of time, otherwise we're in a poor negotiating position."

"I'm not sure I like much of that guy's advice," Seth said frankly.

"Yeah, well, he's done a lot of good things for me since I hired him, including getting me the part on Executive Orders, so I'll be going with what he suggests. Like I've told you before, I'm going to make it clear that I want to stay with WWE, that's not in doubt as far as I'm concerned."

"I get that, but I don't want to see you alienate Hunter and Steph in the process. Just be careful with what you're doing is all I'm saying."

"Okay, I'll be careful," Ronda promised him as they reached their locker room. "Can we change the subject now? I had much better ideas for tonight than getting into an argument over stupid contracts."

Deciding to let the subject go, Seth leaned down for a kiss. "Tell me about these plans of yours."

* * *

"How was Charlotte?" Hunter asked his wife when she walked back into the production office.

"Very happy, but a little bit overwhelmed by it all," Stephanie reported as she came over to stand beside where he was sitting. "I guess that's to be expected, making her debut at Summerslam. It's a pretty huge deal."

"True," Hunter said. "I'll make sure to have a few minutes with her before we leave tonight. I'm sure there are a lot of emotions going on her head, thinking of Ric. I wish he could have been here myself."

"I know," Stephanie said sympathetically, delicately resting a comforting hand on his shoulder. "We'll always miss him, but we know he wouldn't want us to feel upset. Tonight is a good night for Charlotte and the Flair family."

Hunter looked up at her and smiled. "You're right. Even so, I'm going to make sure I go and see her before we leave. Did you speak to Ronda?" he asked next.

"Yeah, and I brought up the contract like you asked me to."

"What did she say?" Hunter asked.

"Not a great deal," Stephanie shrugged, irritation written all over her face. "It's pretty obvious she was actively trying to be non-committal with me. I don't know whether she wants to let her contract expire and then leave, or whether she just wants us to think that she might do that, but I'm not getting good vibes from her. Seth seemed more confident about it when we had dinner that night, but I'm not so sure. After everything we, particularly you, have done over the years to support her, I think she's got a bit of a nerve acting like this. If she wants to stay, she should be open with us about it. It's not like we wouldn't make her a fair offer. Whereas if she intends to leave, the least I would expect is for her to tell us that and allow us to make plans accordingly."

Hunter had to agree with what she had said, but knowing Ronda as he did, he knew that trying to force the issue any more was highly unlikely to get a positive reaction. He had to put faith in the fact that she would keep her word and have her agent meet with Mark Carrano the week after the October pay-per-view, and hope that she would send him with instructions that she wanted to renew. If not, then plans would have quickly be made to write her off of TV, and they would reluctantly have to part ways. Personally, he knew that would come as a bitter blow to him if it happened. Ronda had been his first big star after he had taken charge of WWE, and he had always done his best to support her. To have all of that thrown back in has face would leave a very unpleasant taste in his mouth. "Maybe I should take charge of the negotiations myself," he wondered aloud.

"I don't know about that," Stephanie said. "To me, Ronda's going to decide whether to stay or go and her agent will know that decision before he meets with you. I don't think you talking with him would change anything in that regard. However he might spin it, and whatever people might say about Ronda, I think she's the kind of person who makes her own decisions."

"Maybe you're right," Hunter acknowledged. "Ronda will make the decision herself, and I have to believe she will want to stay." With that, he redirected his attention back to the job at hand. There was a pay-per-view on the air, and a match had just started in the ring.


	7. Chapter 7

Looking at the house that belonged to Alice West, Ronda had to smile. If her description of Alice as a pixie was appropriate, then the home she owned was definitely appropriate also. It was a Cape Cod style house with a dormer roof - nothing out of the ordinary for the area. What was out of the ordinary was its size relative to the other buildings around it. If anything, it looked like someone had found a spare patch of land and decided to build on it as it would have been of no use for anything else. Overall, it looked like a perfect home for a pixie. Though she had never been a particularly materialistic person, Ronda would have hated to live somewhere so small, simply because of the lack of space it would offer. She guessed that there had to be a basement under the building, simply for the necessity of somewhere else to put rooms. If that was indeed the case, the basement would likely be a perfect place to film the scenes that were on the day's agenda.

It was presumably to that end that a large white van was parked in the street directly outside the house. Whoever WWE had sent to do the actual filming would have needed to transport their equipment to the filming location. Ronda guessed that one of the cars parked nearby had to be Daga and Bayley's hire car. Given that she was late herself, thanks to no one being allowed to disembark from the plane that she had flown in on for more than half an hour after it had landed for some unspecified reason, she had to believe her friends were already inside the house waiting for her arrival. At least the driver WWE had sent for her had been there ready and waiting when she had finally made it through the terminal. Somehow, Ronda had managed to keep control of her temper throughout the delay. No matter what happened from this point forward, she realised that was probably going to be the day's most remarkable fact.

"Okay, Daga, let's see what you have in store for me this time," Ronda said under her breath as she approached the front door. Seeing that there was no doorbell, she gave the door a couple of very loud knocks and stood back to wait for an answer. Expecting Alice to be the one to open the door, she warned herself under her breath, "Don't call her a fucking pixie."

When the door opened, Ronda saw that it was actually Elena who had responded to her knock. "I wasn't sure if that was someone knocking or kicking the door in," the Italian said as a greeting, delivering the line with a smile.

"What is it with you exaggerating what I do?" Ronda demanded, feigning irritation. "One minute you're saying I punched your lights out, the next I'm smashing the door in."

Elena laughed. "I just like to tease you, Ronda. How are you?"

"I'm good," Ronda smiled pleasantly. She entered the house and the two women greeted each other with the customary peck on both cheeks.

"We're starting down in the basement," Elena said, leading the way along a short, narrow hallway.

Now that she was inside, Ronda had to admit that the house had a certain charm about it. Rustic was the word she would have chosen if asked to describe it. As they reached the door that lead down to the basement, she had the chance to look into the living room. The decoration and furnishings were exactly what she would have expected Alice to have in her pixie house. Most of it looked like it was from a bygone era. But again, it all worked somehow. In it's own quaint little way, it was a nice, homely place.

"Ronda's here," Elena announced unnecessarily as they descended the stairs to the basement. It was hardly likely that the others had thought it was anyone else at the door.

"Hi everyone," Ronda said when she reached the bottom of the stairs. Bayley, a cameraman and Alice were all there, as she had suspected. The cameraman was busy setting up his equipment and merely nodded a greeting.

Alice walked over and extended a hand. "Ronda, welcome. Good to see you again."

"Hello, Alice," Ronda said, accepting the tiny woman's hand. "You have a nice home," she added genuinely.

"Thank you," Alice said, smiling in surprise. "There's fresh coffee over there if you'd like some." She gestured to a sturdy wooden dining table at the back of the basement. Only then did Ronda realise that the rear garden was a lot lower than the road at the front of the house. A glazed door lead out from the back of the basement onto a small lawn. A large window would have allowed a lot of light in if a heavy curtain hadn't been pulled across it. The dining table would have been quite a pleasant place to eat on a sunny day, Ronda thought.

She walked over to the table and poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot, not adding any of the available cream or sugar. The coffee smelled like good strong stuff. The first sip confirmed that.

"Hey, Ronda," Bayley said as she approached, her usual cheery smile on her face. "Sorry your flight was delayed. I really hate it when that happens."

"Hi, Bay. The delay was annoying, but it's one of those things." Ronda looked Bayley up and down. She was dressed in the outfit for her latest character; a pair of black jeans and a leather jacket which she would presumably wear zipped up when the time came to film. It was crucial that there was to be no way for the audience to figure out who she was. Initially, WWE's audience were supposed to assume that Elena was the woman in black, merely wearing a disguise to get around the clause in her contract about not touching Ronda.

"I have a ski mask to put on, and Alice brought some gloves down," Bayley said, figuring out what Ronda was thinking. "I'll be totally covered up before we start filming."

"Sounds good," Ronda. She had also noticed that one of the wooden chairs from the dining set had been moved to the other end of the room and left in the middle of the floor. "Let me guess, I'm going to end up tied to that?"

"You sure will," Elena said, walking back down the stairs. The reason for her trip back upstairs was more than obvious. In her arms, she was carrying several lengths of rope, a roll of black duct tape and what looked like a couple of small bandannas or cloths. She dumped the items on the floor near to the chair.

Ronda chugged down half of her cup of coffee, savouring the hit that the caffeine gave her. With that done, she walked over to Elena. "You look like your enjoying yourself already, Daga. Come on then, you said you had this planned out. What's the deal?"

"We've been talking it over, and we've reached an agreement on something of a middle ground between our ideas, which fits with what Hunter wants," Alice said before Elena could respond herself. That authoritative manner was familiar to Ronda from the last time she had worked with Alice, and she respected it. The pixie took no shit.

"By the way, congrats on the promotion to producing for Smackdown," Ronda said. "You don't fuck around. I like that."

Alice laughed. "Thanks for the compliment. So, let's go over the plan for the first couple of scenes, shall we?"

"I'm going to be tied to the chair, I already know that much," Ronda said, finding it hard to look forward to the prospect.

"Right," Alice said. "The key points we want to get across to the audience with the first scene are that you've been kidnapped, obviously, and that whoever the woman in black is, is the person who did it. Naturally, Daga will be the obvious suspect. That's what we want people to think. Needless to say, the woman in black can't say anything or we would know who it is, so we're going to start the scene with you already bound and gagged. You're going to make it look like you're just coming around after being drugged. The woman in black will then walk over and put a blindfold on you and walk away again, leaving you helpless. You'll do a bit of fruitless struggling and that'll be it for what we'll see on week one of the angle. Just enough to start people off accusing Daga of being the woman in black, and of kidnapping you, basically."

"Sounds like fun," Ronda said dryly. "Then what happens?"

"Then we film the second scene, which is the first time we see Daga and the woman in black at the same time, proving that it isn't her."

"That will really start them guessing," Bayley said with a grin. "I bet no one guesses me though."

"I bet they don't," Ronda agreed. "That reveal is possibly the best thing about this angle. People's minds will be blown."

"I can't wait," Bayley said excitedly.

They talked for a few more minutes, going into more detail about what needed to be filmed, until the cameraman announced that he would soon be ready to begin.

"Okay, let's get this show on the road," Alice said, her voice suddenly all business. "Ronda, if you need the bathroom or anything, now's the time. You're going to be tied up for a while because we need to keep continuity."

"I'm good," Ronda assured her.

"Alright," Alice nodded. "We'll get the first few scenes done, then we can stop for a break. We'll need to move the action upstairs then anyway. Ronda, I think we'd be better with your jacket off, if you don't mind."

Ronda had to remind herself not to give a sarcastic comment as she removed her fleece jacket and handed it over to Bayley, who hung it over the back of one of the other dining chairs. After all, WWE were paying her as an actress now that she couldn't wrestle. She was hardly in a position to gripe about what they asked her to do. "Let me guess, you're going to be the one tying me up, Daga?" she asked, taking a seat on the chair where she would be spending the foreseeable future.

"Of course I am," Elena said with a chuckle. "I need to make you nice and secure, but I'll do it without cutting off your blood flow."

"That's kind of you," Ronda quipped.

While Elena sorted out the first length of rope she wanted to use, Ronda noticed Bayley slipping her hands into a pair of black latex gloves in the background. Her ski mask was sitting on the dining table, ready to be put on before the filming started. "If I didn't know better, I'd start worrying what you were planning to do to me, putting those things on," Ronda said.

"You know, that's a good idea," Alice said thoughtfully as Elena went to work tying Ronda's left leg to the chair, for the sake of realism making sure to position the rope above her ankle, so that it was also above the wooden bar that connected the chair legs. That way, even if she managed to tip the chair over, Ronda wouldn't have been able to wriggle the ropes off the bottom of the chair leg and get free that way.

"What's a good idea?" Ronda asked.

"We could have Daga put a pair of those gloves on too at some point during one of the scenes, saying she doesn't want to get your blood on her hands or something like that. It's an easy way for her to threaten you and freak you out."

"I like that," Elena said. She had just finished tying her first knot. "How's that, Ronda? Not too painful?"

"It's okay," Ronda said. Her attempt to move her leg failed. "I can't move it, so yeah, that's fine."

"Great," Elena said, shifting over to work on the other leg in the same manner, with the same length of rope.

Ronda realised that her legs would be bound to the chair and essentially to each other as well. It struck her as a particularly effective way to tie someone up. "Daga, why is it that you're so good at this kind of thing?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" the Italian asked without looking up from her work.

"Are you blushing over there, Bayley?" Ronda asked, trying not to laugh at how awkward her friend suddenly looked. So, that was the kind of thing they got up to in the bedroom.

"Not at all," Bayley said unconvincingly.

Elena suddenly seemed keen to move the conversation on. "How much do you actually want me to tie her?" she asked Alice.

"Do it as securely as you can," the producer said seriously. "Remember, when you think about it with everyone in-character, Ronda's doing this with the aim of convincing Stephanie to sign the document which allows you to choose a new GM. For that to happen, Steph's going to need to think she's really in danger and suffering."

"That's true," Ronda had to admit. One of the things she and Elena had in common was that they had never been afraid to go all-in when it came to violence in their matches; if anything they had pushed each other further and further in that regard. It was one of the biggest reasons their rivalry had been such a success. For that reason, Ronda couldn't allow herself to hold back now, thinking that she might disappoint her friend somehow. "Tie me up as good as you can," she said.

"You got it," Elena said. "Bay, hand me another rope, please."

Bayley had just walked over to survey the action up close, ski mask in hand. She crouched down and picked up another length of rope and passed it to her girlfriend. Elena wrapped it around Ronda's thighs and underneath the chair's seat, tying it off at the side. The next rope went around her stomach and the back of the chair, tied off at the back so that the knot couldn't dig into Ronda. It was effective bondage, but Elena was doing everything she could to avoid discomfort, Ronda noticed, appreciative of the fact. "I won't be going anywhere now," she said, simply for the sake of breaking the silence.

"I'm not done yet," Elena said as Bayley handed over another length of rope. "Hands behind, please."

The gaps between the bars on the back of the chair were just wide enough for Ronda to pass her arms through. "Perfect," Elena said, securing her wrists together. "Only one more rope, I think." Bayley handed it over and Elena wrapped it around Ronda's chest, just below her breasts. Once it was tied, Ronda knew that there was no way she could get out of her predicament without help. There was nothing like realism.

"Are you good?" Elena asked.

"I'm not sure good is the right word, but I'm okay," Ronda said.

"Try and move," Alice instructed her.

Ronda strained against her bonds, to almost not effect. "Yeah, I can't move," she reported.

"Excellent," was Alice's verdict. "Now we just need your gag, and we can get going."

"No jokes this time, Daga," Ronda said sternly. "I remember you kept making comments last time."

"Really?" Elena asked, pretending to be surprised. "What jokes could I possibly make about taping your mouth shut? I'll have to think of some quickly."

"I'm sure Seth would like the peace and quiet if he was here," Bayley giggled.

Ronda fixed her with one of her best death stares. "Don't you start."

Bayley tried to get into her new character for her reply. "I think you'd better start remembering who's the hostage here, Rousey," she said cruelly.

"You've been teaching her well, Daga," Ronda said with genuine admiration. Maybe Bayley could pull off a heel character after all.

"She's a natural," Elena said with evident pride. She now had a small white cloth and the roll of black tape in her hand. "Open up," she instructed, making to put the cloth in Ronda's mouth.

"Is that really necessary?" Ronda asked, sounding almost like she was whining.

"Yes," Elena said bluntly. "It's going to be obvious you're being held in a house. You would need to be gagged very effectively or someone might hear you. Beside that, like Alice already said, remember that Stephanie would see this. When Bayley takes the tape off and we find out this was in your mouth, we realise you were in even more discomfort."

Ronda relented. "Fine, get on with it. One day we're going to have to reverse these roles and see how you like it."

"Let me know when and where," Elena said with a smile that Ronda had to admit was alluring. Although she wasn't at all inclined towards women, she could definitely see what Bayley saw in Daga.

"Can we just get on with it," Alice said, showing her first sign of impatience of the day.

"Sorry," Ronda said, annoyed with herself for objecting to what Elena wanted to do. That was the one thing she hadn't wanted to do. She opened her mouth and the cloth was popped into it. She was happy to find that at least it didn't stuff her mouth full, and therefore wasn't actually uncomfortable. It would just add an extra muffling effect to the gag.

"Bay, this is how I want you to do the tape," Elena said, encouraging her girlfriend and on-screen partner in crime to pay attention. She stretched out a long length from the roll and stuck it to Ronda's cheek, then worked her way around her head slowly, making sure to apply the tape tightly as she went. She paid special attention to smoothing it down over Ronda's lips, making it almost contour to the shape of them as it sealed them up. "Wrap it around twice, just like this," she instructed. "And make sure it's nice and tight, otherwise it will just look crap on TV, and might even start coming off."

It had been a long time since that day in the warehouse, the last time Ronda had had her mouth taped, but she had the impression that this particular tape was even more effective than the last one had been when she tested the strength of the adhesive by trying to move her lips against it. Nothing happened at all. The tape was wrapped around her head so tightly that it felt slightly painful on her cheeks. Telling herself to relax, she remembered from before that after a while, if she didn't try and strain against it, it would gradually get a little more comfortable. If there was one bonus, it was that she was able to breathe fairly easily through her nose.

"Are you okay, Ronda?" Bayley asked, showing actual concern.

"Can you breathe okay?" Elena added.

"Mmm hmm," she replied; the best she could do to give a positive response.

"All set?" Alice asked the cameraman, who had been standing back, keeping out of the way while the women had been getting themselves ready.

"Yeah, ready when you are," he confirmed as Bayley put her ski mask on and picked up the dark blue bandanna which would soon become a blindfold. Elena retreated over to the dining table to take a seat where she wouldn't interfere with the filming of the opening scene.

Seeing that everyone was ready, Alice said, "Okay, let's go."


	8. Chapter 8

The first segment of the abduction storyline began with a shot focused right in on Ronda's eyes as they fluttered open in her first moments of consciousness. The camera slowly zoomed out, revealing first that her mouth was tightly wrapped in black tape, then that she was tied to a chair with multiple different lengths of rope, the bonds designed to prevent her from making any kind of movement at all. It appeared that she was being held captive in some kind of cellar or basement.

It seemed to take the groggy Ronda a moment to realise that she was bound. Once the realisation dawned on her, she began trying to strain against the ropes, particularly the ones securing her chest and waist to the back of the chair. While she was making those futile attempts at escape, the shot partially panned around the chair, settling on an angle that showed how well her wrists had been tied together, after having been passed through the bars at the back of the chair. Her wrists moved ever so slightly as she struggled, but freeing herself from this bondage was plainly going to be impossible, even for someone as strong as Ronda.

"Hmmmpph!" she tried to yell. The sound was so well muffled by the gag that it would have been difficult for anyone in the house to hear her cry for help, let alone anyone outside who might be able to come to her aid.

With a groan of what sounded like a combination of frustration and fear, Ronda again tried her best to strain against her restraints. Even her legs we totally incapacitated by ropes that were tied just above her ankles. She looked down at the bonds, seemingly trying to figure out exactly how bad her situation was. Suddenly, the sound of footsteps made her jerk her head back up and look at the person who was approaching; her captor.

"Mmmph," she said weakly, looking up at a figure dressed all in black, including a ski mask. Only the body shape gave away the fact that it was a woman.

Rather than say anything to the hostage, the mysterious figure simply produced a dark blue bandanna and placed it over Ronda's eyes to make a blindfold. "Nmmm," Ronda pleaded weakly. Unmoved by the attempt to communicate, the figure's black gloved hands tied a knot in the bandanna at the back of her head, securing the blindfold in place. With that done, the woman in black turned and walked calmly out of the shot.

Now denied the ability to see as well as the ability to move or talk, Ronda moaned despairingly into her gag as the short segment came to an end.

* * *

"Good job, that'll do it for the first scene," Alice said. She walked over and took the blindfold off Ronda and handed it to Bayley. "Are you okay, Ronda?"

"Mmm hmm," Ronda confirmed.

"Right, let's get straight to the next scene," Alice said to Elena and Bayley. "We don't want her tied up like that longer than she has to be; I'm sure it's not comfortable."

Ronda rolled her eyes at the understatement as Elena said, "You took the blindfold off. What about continuity?"

"Think about it," Alice said patiently. "The next scene is going to be where you and the woman in black are seen together for the first time. It's going to be shown on the second Smackdown episode of the angle, as if it happened the day before. That means it will have been almost a week since the last time the viewers saw Ronda. She'd have died of thirst if she had been left alone that long, so someone had to be here to 'take care of her,' if I can put it like that."

"Of course," Elena said, annoyed with herself for her stupid question. "Surely we should change her gag as well then. If it's supposed to have been taken off multiple times, it would hardly look exactly the same."

Ronda made an annoyed-sounding noise, clearly not thrilled with the idea of going through the unpleasant process of having the tape pulled away from her skin more times than it had to be.

"We'll film the next scene from the opposite side," Alice decided. "That way, not even the most detail obsessed viewer can have any complaints."

"Good idea," Elena said. "Shall we get on?"

"Yes," Alice said. "Bayley, put the blindfold back on, please."

Ronda's eyes were quickly covered by the bandanna again. She was glad she was among friends, filming for a TV show rather than in this horrible predicament for real. For some reason, she found being unable to see to be possibly the most unnerving aspect of all.

"Okay, here we go," Alice said, getting everyone ready to film again.

* * *

The mysterious woman in black walked over to her captive, who was still secured to the chair in the basement. Ronda had been sitting with her head bowed, but the sound of the footsteps made her raise it and moan into the tape. It was a hopeful sound, as if she thought someone might have come to set her free. Some chance of that.

Elena D'Agostino's thick Italian accent was unmistakable when she spoke. At first, it appeared that the majority of the audience had been correct in their suspicions that she was the woman in black, but that theory was soon shot down in flames. "Ronda, this must seem very familiar, no?" she asked.

The woman in black walked around behind Ronda's chair and untied the knot in the blindfold. Only then did the shot pan around to reveal that Elena was actually standing in front of the hostage. "I told Stephanie McMahon I wasn't the woman in black, but she didn't want to believe me. Of course, you know who it is, don't you, Ronda?"

Despite her situation, Ronda still couldn't contain her anger when she set eyes on her nemesis. She roared furiously into her gag and strained against the ropes that were restraining her.

"Save it," Elena said, shaking her head at how pathetic she perceived her victim to be. "And don't act like you are surprised. Who did you really think would be the mastermind who had you kidnapped? We had so much fun last time, yes? But then Cesaro convinced me to let you go. It was a real shame we had to end the fun when we'd just got started, so now we're starting over. Since you're a coward and had that stupid clause put in your contract about me touching you, I had to get some help. Luckily, it was quite easy."

"Whht mm ymm gmmmph tmm dm?" Ronda tried to ask.

"What am I going to do?" Elena asked. "Interesting question, Ronda. That depends on Stephanie McMahon. You see, I learn something from Cesaro," she explained, using slightly the wrong word, as was often the case with her character. "If you want something in WWE, the easiest way to get it is to kidnap someone really pathetic… like Ronda Rousey."

Ronda glared at the Italian, but didn't give her the satisfaction of further protests.

"What's going to happen is, Stephanie is going to give me something that I want," Elena went on. "Otherwise, you're going to be spending a very long, very unpleasant time here with me and the lady standing behind you."

Without saying a word, the woman in black pulled a cell phone out of her jacket pocket and held it out to Elena in a gloved hand. It was apparently a prompt for the mastermind of the operation to get on with it.

"Ah, of course," Elena said, memory jogged. "Let me explain what's going to happen next, Ronda. I'm going to call Stephanie, and you're going to explain where you are and that I'm holding you as a hostage." Her tone became very menacing as she went on. As she spoke, she pulled a pair of black latex gloves matching those worn by her partner out of her pocket and put them on to emphasise the threat she had in mind. "And that's all you're going to say. If you even try and give away who my friend is, I'll cut your tongue out of your stupid head. You understand, yes?"

Ronda's eyes had widened a bit at the threat, and she let out what was obviously a short cry of fear.

Short of patience, Elena stepped forward and slapped Ronda hard across the face. "I asked if you understand?" she thundered. "Don't push me, Ronda. You won't like what happens to you."

Afraid of what might happen if she angered her captor further, Ronda made a muffled sound that seemed to imply she would do as she had been told.

"Better," Elena decided with an air of satisfaction. Looking at her partner in crime, she ordered, "Take her gag off."

The woman in black set about the task of unwrapping the tape from around Ronda's head. The adhesive was not keen to give up its grip, making Ronda groan in pain as it was torn from her lips. As soon as she could, she tried to work the cloth out of her mouth. The mystery woman helped out, pulling it out and dropping it in her jacket pocket.

"Keep her quiet while I make the call," Elena ordered.

Ronda cried out in surprise as Bayley's gloved hand was clamped over her mouth. She found it even harder to breathe that it had been while she had been gagged. Thankfully, filming this part of the scene would not take long.

Elena waited a moment while her call supposedly connected to Stephanie McMahon. "Stephanie, you know who this is. I have someone here with me who has a message for you. Before you jump to a conclusion, I haven't touched her. I put her on now." She held the phone out towards Ronda and demanded, "Tell her what I told you to say."

The woman in black removed her hand from Ronda's mouth and the helpless captive did as she had been instructed, her voice sounding the worse for a dry throat. "Stephanie, it's Ronda. That bitch Elena has me tied up in a basement or something. There's another woman with her. They say they're not going to let me go until you give Elena what she wants."

Satisfied despite the insult, Elena nodded to her partner, who took the gesture as a cue to put her hand back over Ronda's mouth, ignoring the angry muffled protest that came from underneath it.

"You heard the woman, Stephanie," Elena said into the phone. "I will present you with a document tomorrow night on Smackdown. You will sign the document, yes? No, shut up," she shouted, as if she was cutting of the person on the other end of the call. "This is not a negotiation. I am telling you what you will do. You will sign the document or I will send you a video of me torturing your precious Ronda. She is your friend, no? Act like it."

With that, Elena ended the call, an evil sneer on her face. "Well done, Ronda." She gave another simple order to her partner. "Gag her."

"No, don't," Ronda managed to say after the mystery woman's hand came off her mouth, but the cloth was quickly crammed back in there. In the same manner as before, the strong black tape was soon wrapped around her head twice.

Without being told, the woman then put Ronda's blindfold back on as she pleaded pathetically into the tape.

"Shut up," Elena ordered, as if finding the weakness of her hostage tiresome. "We'll be back later. We need to move you somewhere else. Now be quiet, and we see you soon. Before you see us, anyway," she added. Satisfied with her own joke, she lead her partner out of the shot, laughing like a stereotypical villain who was happy with how their evil plot was progressing.


	9. Chapter 9

With a sigh of relief, Ronda tossed the last of the ropes that had been binding her aside. "Thank fuck that's over," she said to no one in particular.

"That part is at least," Elena said with a hint of mirth in her voice.

"Whatever you have in mind next, it can't be as bad as that," Ronda said definitively.

Elena turned to Bayley and said, "I hate it when she underestimates me."

Ski mask now removed, Bayley grinned. "She should know better."

"What do you say we go upstairs and have a drink?" Alice suggested. "A short break sounds good."

Everyone agreed that was a good idea and followed her up the stairs. Within minutes, Alice had made and served fresh coffee and they were sitting in the living room to drink it. With the three wrestlers and a cameraman as guests, Alice had had to bring a computer chair down from her bedroom to have something to sit on herself.

At least the conversation was flowing well, she thought, and there had been no histrionics from Ronda Rousey. In itself, that was a pleasant surprise, given her reputation at WWE for exactly that when she was put in a situation or asked to do something she didn't enjoy. The sound of Alice's phone ringing in her pocket nearly made her curse. Somehow, she had forgotten to put it into silent mode before they had started filming down in the basement. It was a rookie error, but luckily the timing of whatever this call was had not made her pay for it in the form of ruining a scene in progress. Taking the device out of her pocket, she saw Hunter Helmsley's name on the screen. Getting a call directly from the boss wasn't a common occurrence. She decided to walk back through to the kitchen before answering, primarily to avoid having to try and hear the boss over the rest of the chatter in the living room. "Hunter, hi," she began.

"Hello, Alice. I'm glad I managed to get you. I imagine you've already been filming?"

"We have," Alice confirmed, using her tone to convey that she wasn't sure where this was going.

"How much have you done so far?" Hunter asked next.

"Just the first two scenes in the basement," Alice said. "Ronda had a bit of flight trouble and was delayed for a while."

"I bet that got you off to a good start?" Hunter chuckled.

"Actually she was fine," Alice said, suddenly feeling a little sorry for Ronda that people seemed to assume the worst of her. But then, maybe they had reason to based on past experiences.

"Well, good," Hunter said. "Listen, the reason I called is that I just had an idea for something we can do on week three of the angle. I like it better than what we had originally planned, so it sounds like I called you just in time to avoid tossing out anything you might have already filmed."

"Your timing is impeccable," Alice agreed. "What would you like me to do?"

A few minutes later, she walked back into the living room with her new instructions clear in her mind. She walked and picked up her coffee, downing it in one satisfying hit. The others had already finished their drinks.

"I think we're ready to carry on," Elena announced, standing up.

"Where are we going to film this time?" Ronda asked as she followed suit.

"I'll go down and get the ropes and stuff," Elena said, heading for the stairs down to the basement.

"Upstairs, into my guest bedroom. Follow me," Alice was saying, heading for the other staircase, which lead up to the top floor. "That was Hunter on the phone just now. He wanted to change up what we need to film for this segment, so it's lucky he called when he did."

"I'd have been pissed off if he'd have waited until we were done," Ronda said while they climbed the stairs. Reaching the top, she saw that there were only three rooms upstairs in the dormered roof: two bedrooms and a bathroom. "Christ, this is a fucking pixie house," she said without thinking.

Bayley couldn't hold back a giggle, turning round to look at her friend in near disbelief at what she had heard.

"What's that?" Alice asked, raising an inquisitive eyebrow at Ronda.

Realising her mistake as soon as she had said it, Ronda was trying to think of a way to backpedal to avoid offending the woman. She wasn't coming up with much. "I said this is a pixie house," she admitted reluctantly.

"A pixie house?" Alice asked without any notable reaction. "Why would you say that, of all things?"

"Because I called you a pixie before," Ronda mumbled.

To her surprise, Alice laughed. "Pixie? I love it."

"You do?" Ronda asked, smiling in surprise.

"Yeah," Alice grinned. "I love being small; guys think it's cute. We can't all be tall and built like a tractor, can we, Ronda?"

"No," Ronda said, on the back foot. She wasn't sure if the comment had been a compliment or an insult. Either way, she was in no position to complain. In any event, Alice had walked into the smaller bedroom.

"In here, guys," she said cheerfully.

"So, what did Hunter want us to do?" Ronda asked as she walked into a small but comfortable looking bedroom, keen to move the conversation on. The room only had a single bed; that was all that would have fitted in there without overcrowding the place.

"He wants some footage of you tied up on the bed for Daga to play on the big screen when she confronts Stephanie about the fact she hasn't yet signed the document she's been given. It will supposedly be live footage of you in captivity, pressing the message home to Stephanie that she's the only one who can help you."

"Alright," Ronda agreed reluctantly. "How long are we going to have to shoot this for?"

"We'll get about ten minutes of it I think," Alice decided. "Hunter can have them edit it down to whatever they want to use."

"And what do you want me to do for this ten minutes?" Ronda asked.

"Just struggle a bit, really. Look generally helpless and pathetic. That's how your character would want Stephanie to see her, knowing that's how to get the document signed. Keep in mind, that's the end goal."

"Will you need me for this scene?" Bayley asked as Elena entered the room carrying all of the items she had collected from the basement. She dropped them on the floor just inside the doorway.

"No, we won't need you or Daga this time," Alice said. "The idea is that Ronda's been left here alone, with a camera set up to film her."

The cameraman asked where she wanted him to place the camera, and got to work setting it up once the position was agreed upon.

"So, what's going on?" Elena asked, having missed the explanation of what was about to be filmed. Alice repeated the entire thing, then Elena said, "Okay, got it. I guess you want me to tie her up again then?"

"Yep," Alice agreed. "Can you somehow have her tied up and secured to the bed? If this was legit, you wouldn't want her to be able to get off, after all."

"Remind me again how I got into this?" Ronda sighed, sitting down on the bed.

"It's only ten minutes," Elena pointed out. "It's not like we're really going to take off and leave you here. Although now I mention it..." She allowed her voice to trail off, as if she thought it wasn't such a bad idea after all.

"Very funny," Ronda said dryly. "Come on then, how are you going to tie me up this time?"

"Lie down, please. Hands behind your back. Bay, can you hand me a rope."

Ronda lay down on her side, head resting on the pillow with her back to Elena and her hands in position to be tied. Elena quickly secured them with the first length of rope, then took another from her girlfriend. This one was used to bind Ronda's ankles. Neither of those things surprised the would-be victim, but she knew there had to be more to come. "Now what?" she asked.

"Now we have to get you properly secure," Elena said. "I'm going to tie your wrists to your ankles, but don't worry, I'll leave you plenty of slack on the ropes. You'll be unable to get loose, but you won't be uncomfortable. Then I'll tie your ankles to one of the bars at the bottom of the bed."

"Go on then," Ronda said, trusting her friend not to make the experience as unpleasant as the description sounded.

Elena turned to Bayley. "Give me the longest rope we have, please."

Bayley compared the several lengths that were left and passed the longest one to her girlfriend.

Keeping Ronda's comfort in mind, Elena wound the latest rope around the middle of the one that was binding her wrists, then around the one that was securing her ankles. Checking that there was some slack to allow limited movement of the limbs, she tied off a knot on the opposite side of Ronda's ankles to where her hands were, so that her fingers wouldn't be able to reach it, no matter what she tried to do. "How's that?" she asked.

Ronda tested her range of motion, finding it limited, but not to the extent of being painful. "I'll be okay like this," she announced.

"Okay, good," Elena said, taking one more length of rope from Bayley. This one was again wrapped around Ronda's ankles, then around one of the metal poles that made up the framework at the bottom end of the bed, before being tied off.

"Tape next?" Bayley guessed. "Oh, I still have the cloth in my pocket if you want that?"

"I don't think we need that now," Alice said. "We're not going to be showing the tape being taken off in this scene, so there's no point Ronda having to go through that thing being in her mouth again." She had been standing off to the side, watching Elena's efficient and effective rope work. There could be little doubt that she had experience with this kind of thing. There must have been some fun nights in the Martinez - D'Agostino bedroom, she thought, suppressing a grin.

"Okay, here you go," Bayley said, tossing the roll of tape to Elena.

"At least this is the last time I have to do this," Ronda said as Elena pulled a few inches of tape from the roll and leaned down to stick it to her cheek.

"Sshhh," Elena said softly, smoothing the tape over her lips and pressing it down with her finger to ensure that it sealed properly. As before, she wrapped it twice around Ronda's head to make the gag as effective as possible. "Can you breathe okay?" she asked when she was done.

Ronda gave a grunt to indicate that she was okay.

"Oh, it's probably best if we use the blindfold again," Alice pointed out.

"I think I brought it up," Elena said, turning to Bayley once more.

"Yeah, it's here," she replied, picking it up and handing it over.

Elena put the bandanna blindfold on Ronda, being careful that it didn't cover the bottom of her nose in process.

"Good," Alice said, satisfied that they were ready to film. "Okay, everyone out. Ronda, you know what you need to do, right? Maybe you could lie on your front? That would give us the best shot of you for the camera."

"Mmm," Ronda mumbled, turning over on to her front as requested. She had to lie there tied up and look like she couldn't get free, when in fact she probably couldn't. It was hardly the most difficult scene of her career as far as the acting was concerned, even if it probably was one of the least enjoyable. She heard footsteps leaving the room, then Alice speaking to the cameraman.

"Start filming when you're ready."

"Got it," he replied. A moment later, she heard him say, "Okay, Ronda." Then his footsteps also retreated from the room.

Keeping in mind what the objective of the scene was, she spent the next ten minutes, which seemed to last a hell of a lot longer from her perspective, struggling against the ropes as best she could. True to form, Elena had done a good enough job with tying her up that she didn't have to fake the fact that she couldn't escape. She also made sure to moan into the tape at reasonably regular intervals to make her plight seem even more compelling to the viewer.

"Okay, that'll do it," Alice's voice said at long last, as she walked back into the room. She went straight over to the bed and removed Ronda's blindfold, then set about taking the tape off. The cameraman had also entered the room, walking over to his camera and turning it off.

"I'm glad that's over," Ronda said as soon as her lips were free of the adhesive. "Hunter managed to talk me into doing that kind of thing twice, he's not going to do it again."

"I don't blame you at all," Alice said honestly as she started working on untying the ropes. "For what it's worth, I think you've done a great job both times I've worked with you."

"Thanks, Pixie," Ronda said.

Both women knew then and there that an official nickname had been decided upon, and Alice was delighted with it. Once she had untied Ronda, she said, "Okay, that does it for the filming. Daga and Bayley are downstairs having another coffee; what do you say we join them?"

"I say I could do with something of the alcoholic variety," Ronda said, getting up off the bed and flexing her limbs to ward off the pins and needless sensation she was getting from her extremities.

Alice smiled broadly. "I'll see what I can do."


	10. Chapter 10

Hell in a Cell was Smackdown's October pay-per-view, and therefore the event where Ronda's heel turn was to take place.

After her return at Summerslam, she had managed Charlotte Flair for a month or so without anything particularly noteworthy happening; the company's way of biding their time before they started the abduction angle.

Once the storyline had started, the reception from the fans had been generally positive, especially in reference to Elena's acting. The Italian was really making a name for herself in that regard. Speculation had also been rife as to the identity of the mystery woman in black. Pleasingly, hardly anyone had seemed to suspect Bayley as the culprit.

That revelation was for a later date, though. Tonight was all about Elena making the announcement of who she had chosen as the new Smackdown General Manager, as was now contractually her right. It was a certain fact that no one expected it to be Ronda who got the job. The crowd's reaction to that promised to be a good one, and somewhat surprisingly even to herself, Ronda was looking forward to it.

Turning heel was not what she would have chosen to do if she had been given the option, but now that it was what she had to work with, she was determined to give it her best. After all, it was possible that this was her last run with company. Her intention was to sign a new contract and stay with WWE, but there was a lot of negotiating to do before that became any kind of certainty.

Ronda's agent Rob Sinclair was scheduled to meet with WWE's Mark Carrano the following week. Although he would be sent with an instruction that she wanted to renew, he had made plain that he would advise her strongly against accepting any offer that fell below expectation in terms of what she was worth. That was fair enough, she'd had to admit. Should WWE try and lowball her, she was prepared to walk away, albeit with a heavy heart. However, thanks to her positive relationship with Hunter and Stephanie, she didn't expect that to be a problem.

Trying to put those thoughts aside for now, she opened the door to the women's locker room and walked in. "Hey, everyone," she said warmly.

Greetings came back at her from everyone in the room, but Ronda had already frozen in her tracks, looking at something that was taped to the back wall, given pride of place in the locker room. "What the fuck is that?" she demanded, walking over to look at it more closely.

"Do you like it?" Elena asked innocently.

The object in question was a drawing. It showed a bright green tractor, drawn in a cartoon style, the kind that little kids would like. At the front of the machine, where the engine grille should have been, there was instead a face. Ronda's face, to be specific. In the corner of the drawing, in large capital letters was the name: Ronda the Tractor.

Ronda knew where the name had come from. She could remember Alice the fucking pixie saying she was built like a tractor. The real question was, who had put the drawing on the wall. Since Elena had walked over and stood next to her, she became the prime suspect. "Was this you?" Ronda asked heatedly as several of the other women giggled away in the background.

"Nothing to do with me," Elena said, raising her hands to further express innocence.

Chuckling, Bayley walked over and joined them. "Actually, it was me," she confessed.

It was obvious that by reacting angrily, Ronda was only making things worse for herself. Anger was the reaction that Bayley had wanted in order for the rib to have really achieved a result. Trying to find her sense of humour, Ronda studied the drawing again. It really was very well done. Surely no one in the locker room could draw that well? It looked more like the work of a professional artist. Then the penny dropped.

"Can you guess who drew it?" Bayley asked, grinning broadly.

"Oh, I know who fucking drew it," Ronda said, thinking that she was going to kill Maggie next time she saw her. "Some best friend she is," she huffed.

"Come on, you've got to admit it's funny," Nikki Bella said from behind them. Ronda turned around to find her friend holding her phone up. "Hold the picture, Ronda. Let me get a shot of you holding it. It will be a laugh for the fans."

Telling Nikki to fuck off was Ronda's first instinct. Being laughed at had never been something she could accept easily. In the past she would probably have done exactly that, on her way to storming out of the locker room. Now, though, she made the effort to go through one of the mental techniques that her therapist had taught her to use when she needed to calm herself down.

During those few seconds, Elena had taken the drawing down from the wall. "Here you go," she said, offering it to Ronda.

Shaking her head slightly, Ronda took the paper and studied the drawing again. Maggie's artistic style was obvious now that she knew it was her friend's work. "So you called Maggie and her to do this?" Ronda asked Bayley.

"I messaged her and asked her," Bayley said. "Then when she had drawn it, she sent it to me in a message on Twitter and I went and got it printed in colour. Are you going to pose with it?" she asked hopefully. Now that the anger phase seemed to have gone, ending on a laugh, or even better a hug, would be perfect from her point of view.

"Alright," Ronda conceded. She held the drawing up and looked at Nikki's phone, trying her best to replicate Ronda the Tractor's facial expression.

"That's perfect," Nikki giggled. She took the picture, then said, "I have to put that up. Hashtag Ronda the Tractor needs to be a thing."

Now with good humour, Ronda turned to Bayley and asked, "Why exactly haven't I killed you yet?"

Elena handled the answer. "Because then I'd kill you for killing her. And then you'd be down two teammates."

* * *

Standing backstage, Ronda had to smile to herself. Elena was on her way to the ring, and that fact alone had the fans at boiling point. Boos and abuse were raining down on the woman who was arguably the best heel in all of WWE. When her music faded out, the venom behind the boos became all the more obvious. There was no way Ronda could have hidden her admiration even if she had wanted to. "She's so good at this," she said to Bayley, who was standing beside her.

"I know," Bayley said proudly. Although she was not a part of the segment, she had wanted to watch it first hand rather than on a monitor in her locker room.

"Hopefully it will mean I get some heat," Ronda said as Elena started the segment in the ring, predictably by abusing the fans. "Last time they tried to turn me, it didn't really work."

"I remember," Bayley said. "That was the female Evolution angle, wasn't it?"

Ronda nodded. "Yeah. Steph had crazy heat at the time. We felt sure that would make my turn work, but people still insisted on cheering me most of the time. It became kind of the thing to do to have fun, as far as the fans were concerned. They would boo Sarita and Devon, then as soon as I did something, they would cheer it. In some ways it was annoying, but I found myself having to try hard not to laugh sometimes, too."

"Well, I hope that doesn't happen this time," Bayley said a little nervously. "I've been looking forward to turning heel and teaming with Daga, and with you of course," she added after a short pause. "I wouldn't want the whole thing turning into a joke."

"I'm sure it won't, not when you listen to that," Ronda said, meaning the latest volley of boos that were raining down on the ring.

A couple of minutes later, Elena had finished working the audience up to boiling point. It was now time to make her big announcement. "I'm aware that there's been a lot of, how do you say... speculation? Yes, speculation, about who I'm going to choose as the new Smackdown General Manager. Some people have said I might name myself." She pretended to consider that idea for a moment before shaking her head. "No, it's not going to be me."

Bayley and Ronda exchanged a grin behind the curtain at how Elena was stringing everyone along.

"Other people have said I might name the mystery woman in black, my partner in crime," Elena went on thoughtfully. "No, I'm not going to do that either. In fact, I'm not even going to tell you who the woman in black is. She might come in useful again soon. What I'm actually going to do is name someone none of you have suspected," she revealed.

Backstage, Ronda took in a deep breath, surprised by the fact that she felt nervous about the moment her music would hit. It had been a very long time since she had felt that way.

"Therefore, allow me to introduce the new Smackdown General Manager," Elena said. She left a theatrical pause, then proudly announced, "Ronda Rousey!"

Surprise was the way Ronda have summed up the reaction to her music. There was certainly an absence of hatred, but that was no real surprise, she reasoned as she walked out onto the stage. No one really understood what was happening. Ronda and Elena joining forces appeared to make no sense, after the recent scenes showing her apparently being held captive at the hands of the Italian and her anonymous ally.

After climbing into the ring, Ronda walked over to Elena, expecting to take the microphone from her. Her new partner, however, had a better idea to signal their new alliance. She offered a hug, which Ronda accepted on instinct. It turned out to be the perfect idea, setting the crowd off booing again for the first time since Ronda's music had hit. Now she had to sell her transition to the dark side as best she could, by talking down to the people who had always supported her. That aspect of it was not particularly pleasant, but it was part of the job. Hunter had given her some pointers on what she was supposed to say in her relatively short speech, she just had to make it convincing.

"I see a lot of dumbstruck expressions out there," she began. "You're sitting there asking yourselves, 'What the hell's going on? Ronda can't be on the same page as Elena.' Well, I'm here to tell you, yes I can," she said emphatically, drawing more confused-sounding boos.

Elena stood beside her new partner, looking overjoyed at the fact that she had managed to have a part in turning Ronda against the fans.

"When I retired from wrestling, I never wanted to be gone from WWE for a year," Ronda went on bitterly. "I wanted to stay on. I asked Hunter and I asked Stephanie to give me some kind of job here, as a General Manager or whatever they could find for me. I figured that was the least they could do after everything I had given to their company over the years. And what did they do? They gave me nothing," she spat. "Nothing!"

Now that they were friends, Elena was full of sympathy for Ronda, giving her an expression that was full of compassion.

"And what about you people? Ronda went on. "I spent year after year pandering to you at every turn, then what happened? I had to retire, and you forgot about me," she complained bitterly, even though the statement wasn't even close to the truth. "In fact, the only person who approached me about coming back to WWE is standing right next to me. Of all people, Elena D'Agostino called me. And that's how we came up with the idea that not only could I come back, if we joined forces, we could take over Smackdown in the process. There was no limit to what an alliance between the two of us could accomplish, and so it has proved to be."

The fans still seemed stunned by what they were hearing. Some were booing, but others just sat there trying to take it all in.

"In case you've not figured it out yet, there was no second kidnapping. I wasn't kidnapped by Elena. I wasn't held for ransom. Everything you've seen over the past few weeks was faked, with that aim of tricking that dumb bitch Stephanie McMahon, who you all like so much, to sign over her position as GM like the brain-dead idiot she is. And sure enough, she did. That's why I stand before you now as the new General Manager of Smackdown. The Rousey regime has begun."

With that triumphant proclamation, the wording of which Hunter had been insistent about, Ronda dropped the microphone and shared a celebratory high five with Elena. She knew that the guys on commentary would be selling what a disgusting human being she had become, which would fit in perfectly with the boos that were audible over her music, which had just started playing. They would also be repeating the Rousey regime catchphrase.

There really was no turning back now. Ronda Rousey was the General Manager of Smackdown, and she had turned heel. The only question was for how long, she found herself thinking as she left the ring. That would depend on the outcome of the contract renewal talks, which were now only a few days away.


	11. Chapter 11

A veteran of countless contract negotiations during his career as an agent, Rob Sinclair was able to quickly pick up on the vibes he was getting from the person he was dealing with. In this case it was Mark Carrano of WWE, apparently a rather arrogant little man who wasn't anything like as good at diplomacy as he seemed to think he was. It had soon become clear to Rob that the two of them were coming at this negotiation from totally opposite directions, and that was a bad thing, for WWE at least. As far as he was concerned, even though his client Ronda Rousey had made her desire to stay with WWE perfectly clear, it wasn't always as simple as that when it came to working out a deal for someone as valuable as she was.

And therein lay the problem. Carrano and WWE didn't seem to value Ronda anywhere near highly enough. They seemed to think that the potential new deal she would sign was going to be for a considerably lower financial package than that provided by her existing contract. On the other hand, Rob had come into the office intent on demanding a higher figure, based on the fact that Ronda's profile in Hollywood had increased significantly over the past few years, not least because of her starring role in Executive Orders. The key point was that if WWE didn't want to pay Ronda what Rob considered her to be worth, he could, and would, take her services elsewhere.

"Look," Mark Carrano said, trying to appear like he wasn't starting to get impatient with the smarmy-looking guy sitting on the opposite side of the table. "Ronda is one of the highest paid people at WWE, and the highest paid woman apart from Stephanie McMahon. That's simply not sustainable when you take into account the fact that she can't even wrestle anymore."

Mark registered the sigh that Rob Sinclair gave as he leaned back in his chair. These negotiations were breaking down fast, such was the distance between the two parties. Even though Hunter Helmsley had been clear that he wanted to keep Ronda with WWE, saying that allowing her contract to expire and watching her walk away was totally unacceptable, Mark was not going to see WWE bend over and take it up the ass from this guy. Demanding that someone who couldn't even wrestle should become the company's highest paid on-screen performer was simply not realistic.

"I don't think we're getting anywhere here," Rob Sinclair said, thinking that if Ronda hadn't been so clear about wanting to stay, he would have already gotten up and walked out by now. "You need to realise that I have people interested in Ronda who I will have to turn down if she stays with WWE. Those people are prepared to pay more than what I'm asking from you. There's no conceivable way I could, in good conscience go back to my client with your offer and say that I thought it was fair and that she should accept it."

With a reluctant grimace, Carrano said, "And I couldn't, in good conscience, sign Ronda to WWE for the amount of money you're talking about when she would only be appearing on Smackdown and pay-per-view, and only in non-competitive roles at that."

"Okay then," Sinclair said, getting to his feet. "I'm going to step outside and call my client. She had requested that before we end these negotiations in one way or another, that I tell her what's been said so that she can make the final decision on it. I have to tell you that I will be recommending to her that she turns down your offer, but she may ask for some time to consider her options. I assume that won't be a problem?"

"Some time to consider the offer is fine," Carrano said, also standing. However, he also had WWE's creative plans to consider. If Ronda Rousey was going to walk away in January when her contract expired, they needed plenty of time to work around it with regard to creative plans to write out her character. "We'll need a decision by the end of October," he decided to say.

"Sorry?" Sinclair asked, taken by surprise by that comment.

"We'll be left with a big problem with regard to creative if Ronda's going to leave, so we'll need time to deal with that. We'll need to know what she's going to do by the end of the month."

"Right," Sinclair nodded, managing to hide his satisfaction at that final exchange. It had been his wish all along for Ronda to leave WWE, thinking that she could do a lot better than working for a wrestling company. Knowing her as well as he did, he was aware that she wouldn't at all appreciate being told that she had only a couple of weeks to make a decision, even if it would have taken her less than that anyway if the deadline hadn't been imposed. It was the principal of being dealt with in such a derogatory manner that would offend her, and rightfully so, in his opinion. He was would put as much spin on that aspect of it as he could once he got her on the phone.

* * *

On the other side of the country, Ronda was at work in her office at the headquarters of The Rousey Foundation. At least, that was the theory. In practice, she wasn't getting much done. For the third time, she started reading the document in front of her from the top, realising that she hadn't been taking in a single word as her eyes had scanned over them. In front of her on the desk were ten sheets of paper. Each one had a photograph of a female firefighter at the top. Every one of these women had done something courageous in the line of duty, which had now put them in contention to meet Ronda as she filmed a short promotional video for the Foundation. The problem was that one in particular needed to be selected, and that job had been left to Ronda herself. Eliminating nine of these amazing ladies would have been tough at the best of times, so it was almost impossible when Ronda's mind was on contract negotiations which were taking place over in Stamford.

The sound of her cell phone ringing almost came as a relief. There was a good chance that it was Rob Sinclair who was calling, hopefully with good news. Taking the phone out of her pocket, she saw her agent's name on the screen. "Hey," she greeted him. "How did it go?"

"Not great," came the reply, immediately giving her a sinking feeling in her stomach. "I went in there prepared to accept a reasonable deal, since you instructed me that you wanted to stay. However, WWE's opinion is apparently that you should be paid significantly less under any future contract than you are now, since you aren't able to wrestle anymore. I explained to this Carrano guy that his position didn't make much sense, considering how much your profile has risen over the past few years. Even so, he was unwilling to move on his position."

"So where does that leave us?" Ronda asked reluctantly.

Rob went on to lay out exactly what WWE had put on the table, making it perfectly clear how unsatisfactory he believed the numbers in question to be. "I told them you'd want some time to consider it before you could make a final decision on an offer as disappointing as this one," he went on.

"Yeah, I probably should," Ronda said, now feeling unsure about what to do. She did feel pretty underappreciated by WWE after hearing their offer, but she supposed she could see the logic behind them not wanting someone who couldn't wrestle to be among their highest paid stars.

"That's when Carrano told me he wants an answer by the end of October," Rob added, timing it to perfection.

"He said what?" Ronda demanded, bristling instantly. One thing she had never been able to stand was people pressuring her to do things. In addition to that, this demand seemed frightfully rude. It certainly wasn't something anyone had ever said to her before when she had been discussing terms.

"He said they need to know if you're going to stay or not by the end of the month, because if you're going they need to get on with writing you out."

"Is that kind of thing usual?" Ronda asked, feeling sure that it wasn't.

"Usual? No. Insulting and disrespectful is what it is," Rob said sincerely. "That's why I stepped outside and called you."

Ronda didn't know that by letting her anger build, she was playing into exactly what her agent wanted. All she could think about was that the people she had given so much of her life to were disrespecting her, both with their offer and their demands on how quick she should make a decision. If they wanted a decision, they could have one, she decided. "Put the fucking guy on the phone," she ordered.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Sinclair asked. "Maybe take some time to think things over?"

"I already made my decision," Ronda snapped. "And I want to tell him myself."

"Fair enough," Sinclair said with a smile that he didn't allow to reach his voice. "One minute, I'll go back in there and put him on."

For the sake of professionalism, Rob made sure to get rid of the smile and not to betray any of his satisfaction when he walked back into Carrano's office and approached the man's desk, offering him the cell phone. "Ronda would like to speak with you," he said.

Looking a little surprised, Carrano took the phone. "Ronda, hello. How are you?"

"I wasn't too bad until I got this call," Ronda snapped, launching right into him. "What's all this shit about you saying I've got to make my decision by the end of the month? That's less than two weeks away. Do you realise what a fucking insult that is?"

"It wasn't supposed to be an insult," Carrano said carefully, realising that he might have screwed up in his attempt to protect WWE's creative team from uncertainty. "All I was saying is we need to know what your decision is going to be so creative know what they have to do. If you need more time..." he started to say, but the mistake had been made by that point, and Ronda had gone off the deep end.

"No, I don't need more time," she thundered at him. "You can have my decision right now. You think you can put pressure on me to accept your insulting fucking offer, like I don't have anything else on the table? Well you're dead wrong, Carrano. You can take your offer and stick it up your ass. Come January, I'm gone. I'll go somewhere I'm going to be fucking appreciated."

For Mark Carrano there was no point in trying to reply; the call had been ended. "I think we're done here," he said to the son of a bitch in front of him as he handed the phone back over.

"I think we are," Sinclair agreed, heading for the door without even a handshake.

"Shit," Carrano said quietly to himself after the door closed behind Ronda Rousey's agent. Hunter Helmsley was not going to be at all pleased with how quickly and badly this had blown up. The boss had wanted Ronda to stay, now she had decided to go, and he was the one who was going to get the shit for it. He decided that the only thing he could do was call up to Hunter's office and tell him everything that had happened.

* * *

Back in Ronda's office at The Rousey Foundation, her pile of documents was now scattered across the floor, along with pretty much everything else that had been on her desk the end of the call. A furious swipe of her hand had taken care of that, as she screamed out the same word that Carrano had muttered to himself. The last thing she had wanted was to leave WWE, but it felt like they had essentially forced her hand towards doing so.

Ronda's first instinct whenever she was upset was to call Seth, the rock in her life. He always knew the right thing to say to make her feel better about whatever had gotten to her. This time, though, she knew it was going to be different. Seth would not be happy at all that she had decided to leave the company that had brought them together twice. He had been quite clear on his position all along, which was that he wanted her to stay. Rightly, he had pointed out that not only was it a role she enjoyed playing, it gave them precious time together every Tuesday. Now that was all going to change. With a heavy sigh, she called Seth's number.

"Hey, babe," he answered after just a few rings. "Did you hear anything about your contract?" He was obviously expecting her to say that it had all been worked out and she would be signing something in the near future.

"Yeah," she replied, sounding defeated. "I'm not going to be signing another contract."

"What?" Seth asked loudly. "Why? We talked about this. You said you wanted to stay."

"I did. But Carrano put a shitty offer on the table and told Rob that I had until the end of the month to accept it or they were going to go ahead and write me out of the show." Thanks to Chinese whispers, that wasn't really what had been said at all, but by now it was what Ronda believed to have happened.

"Wait a minute, what happened?" Seth asked, obviously shocked by the news he was getting.

"I told him to stick his offer and his insulting demands up his ass. I'm leaving, Seth," she told him, feeling tears prickling in her eyes. "I didn't even want to fucking go, but I am," she croaked out.

"Jesus, what a mess," Seth said. "Don't cry, baby." He paused for a second to think, then suggested, "Why don't I call Hunter? I don't know why he left fucking Carrano to handle this, the guy is an idiot. This never would have happened with Hunter. Maybe we can fix it?"

"No," Ronda said, wiping at her eyes with her free hand. "It's too late for that, Seth. They gave me a crap offer and tried to force me to sign it. That shows how little they care about me. The decision is made. I'm leaving WWE."


	12. Chapter 12

Hearing the front door opening surprised Ronda. There was no way Seth could be home; he was on the road with WWE, all the way over in Florida. Even if he had somehow managed to get out of his commitments and left to come home as soon as he had found out the bad news about the contract negotiations, he could not have gotten home this quickly.

That left only one possibility, since only one other person was trusted with a spare set of keys to their house and knew they could let themselves in without knocking or ringing the doorbell. "Maggie?" Ronda called out to her best friend.

"Hey." Maggie's voice came from the entrance hall after the door banged closed.

Ronda knew that the evening she had planned - drowning her sorrows with at least one bottle of wine - had either just been ruined or had gotten better with someone to offer a friendly ear while she did it. The latter was far more likely, but either way she was annoyed with Seth for calling in the cavalry. When he wasn't there to tell her she had made a wrong decision, he would often call on Maggie to do it for him. At times it felt like being teamed up on, but she knew they had her best interests at heart.

"I heard the news about the contract talks," Maggie said as she walked into the spacious living room of what she still thought of as her second home. She saw Ronda curled up on one of the couches, a glass of red wine in her hand and several used tissues littering the floor around her. There had been some crying going on. Knowing Ronda as well as she did, that didn't surprise Maggie at all. If ever there was an emotional person, that person was Ronda.

There was no point in complaining about Maggie and Seth talking behind her back, so Ronda didn't bother. She just gestured for Maggie to sit on the other couch. "Have some wine. It'll stop me drinking it all," she said miserably. "The whole thing turned into a fucking disaster. WWE tried to lowball me and force me into signing the contract they offered by only giving me till the end of the month."

"I'll need a glass," Maggie said, noticing that there wasn't a second one on the coffee table where the wine bottle was standing. Walking out of the room and into the kitchen, she called out, "That doesn't sound like Hunter's style to me." She already knew this part of the story from Seth, but it was a good place to start the conversation.

"It wasn't Hunter," Ronda called back. "It was an asshole who works for him called Mark Carrano."

"I see," Maggie said, walking back into the living room, wine glass in hand. "And what did your agent say to this Carrano guy?" She sat down on the empty couch and set about pouring herself some wine, not that she really wanted any. It was all about helping her friend.

"I sent Rob with instruction that I wanted to renew, but he made the valid point that we should only accept a fair offer. His argument was that my profile has increased a lot with the movies I've done and stuff like Executive Orders since the last time I signed one of their contracts."

Maggie took a sip from her glass. At least it was nice wine. Again, that was no surprise in Ronda's house. "So what went wrong?" she asked.

"WWE saw it totally the opposite way. They put forward an offer for less money than I make now, saying that it was because I can't wrestle anymore. And like I said before, they tried to force me into signing it by giving me a ridiculous deadline." Starting to feel emotional again, she stopped and took a healthy hit from her wine glass. "When I found out about that I totally lost my cool. I had Rob put Carrano on the phone and I told him he could stick his contract up his ass. So, yeah, I'm leaving."

"Oh, Ronnie," Maggie said, feeling her heart breaking at how upset her friend was. She knew how important the wrestling business was to Ronda, even if she couldn't compete anymore. Worst of all was the fact that it seemed to have all blown up because two men with giant egos had butted heads, with neither of them really caring about what Ronda wanted to do. It was lucky that she had a husband and a best friend who did just that.

"I can't remember the last time I felt this bad," Ronda mumbled, trying not to let the tears start flowing again.

"Alright, I'm going to ask you a question," Maggie said a little more firmly. "Forget your agent and his advice; forget Hunter or anyone at WWE; forget me; even forget Seth. Take everyone else out of the picture. What do you want to do? Do you want to stay, or do you want to leave? Anser me that."

Ronda realised that it said a lot that she didn't need any thinking time to arrive at the answer. There had never been any doubt in her mind as to what she wanted. "I want to stay," she said. "I always did want to stay. I love the wrestling business. I have many friends there who I love working with, and of course Seth is there."

"Okay then," Maggie said, having gotten exactly the response she had expected. "I say to hell with your stupid agent, and to hell with whatever you said that idiot's name at WWE was. Get on the phone to Hunter and tell him you want to talk to him in person, just the two of you, and you want to work out a deal that both you and he can be happy with, because your desire is and always was to stay."

"In an ideal world I'd do that," Ronda said after finishing off her wine. She set the glass on the table but didn't refill it. Maybe there was a reason not to drink herself into a coma after all? "The problem is that would piss Rob off, and he's done a lot for me. He got the part in Executive Orders for a start."

Maggie shrugged. "I don't care about him, I care about you. And I've just walked in her and found you drowning your sorrows and crying, so don't talk to me about how he might feel. Call Hunter."

As much as she wanted to stay with WWE, Ronda's pride wouldn't allow her to go that far. "I'm not groveling to WWE, Maggie," she insisted. "As far as I've heard today, they've made it pretty clear they don't value me, or give a shit if I leave. If that's not the case, then Hunter will be climbing the walls right now and he'll call me to see if he can fix it. If that happens, I'll do exactly what you said and offer to talk to him face to face. If not, then I'll go to Smackdown on Tuesday, shake his hand and quit right there and then. One thing's for sure, I'm not spending three months working for people who don't give a fuck about me."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Maggie said cautiously. She knew, though, that Seth would have plenty of time to talk his wife out of that course of action before the time came.

Ronda shrugged and defiantly said, "That's up to them."

Maggie knew that she had planted the seed, and could imagine that if Hunter didn't call, Ronda would call him, despite what she had said. That was just how she was; iniatially reluctant to accept advice until she'd had time to think about it at length. "Well I'm glad you'll talk to Hunter if he does call," she decided to say. "We both know he's always been good to you. I find it very hard to believe he wants to see you walk away after all these years."

"I hope you're right," Ronda said simply. Then she managed a smile. "Thanks for coming over. It's good to have someone to talk to face to face."

"Any time, you know that," Maggie said kindly.

"Oh, and while you're here," Ronda said, her expression becoming more stern. "I want a word with you about Ronda the Tractor."

"Ronda the Tractor? What's that?" Maggie asked innocently.

"Don't even try it," Ronda said, feeling her mood improving already. "I'd recognise your drawing style anywhere."

* * *

By early evening, after Maggie had been gone for more than an hour, Ronda had found herself considering calling Hunter after all. What if he had some doubts about her commitement to WWE for some reason and that was why he had tabled a lower offer than she had expected? Maybe she should just call him and straight up ask him what his deal was and see what happened from there?

In the end, she didn't have to make a decision on that because her cell phone rang and she saw Hunter's name on the screen. The decision she did make was to try not to come with an attitude about the failed talks that morning. She had to do her best to be polite and listen to what the man had to say.

"Hi, Hunter," she said when she answered the call, no particular emotion in her tone.

"Hello, Ronda," the boss said. "I'm sorry to call late, it's been a hell of a day at the office and this really is the first chance I've had."

"Okay," Ronda said, leaving it open for him to go on.

"I talked to Mark Carrano and he told me everything that went on in that meeting this morning."

"Including the fact that he tried to give me two weeks to sign a damn contract?" Ronda asked, unable to stop herself bristling.

"Including that," Hunter confirmed with a sigh. "I want to apologise to you for that. That demand was not something I told him to say, and I've dealt with it at this end."

You mean you've kicked his ass for it, Ronda thought.

"It seems things got bent out of shape pretty badly in there," Hunter went on. "And I know that by the end of the meeting you told Mark you wouldn't be signing with us again."

"I told him to stick his offer up his ass," Ronda clarified.

"Right," Hunter agreed. "That's the reason I'm calling, Ronda. I need to make it clear to you that both Stephanie and myself want you to stay with us. Although you can't wrestle anymore, we still see a long and bright future for you with WWE."

Ronda was tempted to ask if it was a future where they intended to pay her fuck all for her time, but the truth of the matter was that she didn't really give a shit about the money. It was the principal of being valued and wanted that mattered. "So what are you saying?" she asked.

"I'm saying I'd like to talk to you about working out a deal that's suitable for both parties. When I say I'd like to talk to you, I mean you and I in a room, just the two of us. No agents, no exectives who think they've got points to prove, just two people who've worked together for a long time, and I think both want the same outcome here. What do you say?"

It was pretty much what Maggie had suggested earlier, and it was a good idea. Ronda decided to see how much he really meant it. "I guess we could do that," she said. "Can you come out to the house tomorrow?"

The line went quiet for a second. That request had Hunter needing a bit of thinking time. He had probably been about to invite her to the office, she thought.

"Tomorrow, no," Hunter said. "I've got meetings here that I can't put off at this late stage. But I can come out and see you Friday?"

"I have an appareance scheduled for the Foundation on Friday, but I'll cancel it," Ronda decided, realising that she had to show some willingness also. The guy had just agreed to fly across the country to meet with her after all.

"Okay then, Ronda. I'll see you Friday afternoon."

"See you then," Ronda said, smiling now. She was sure that by the end of Friday's conversation that they would have a deal worked out. Seth would be delighted when he got the news. But probably not as delighted as she was.


	13. Chapter 13

_A/N: Three years ago today I published my first story on this site. I wanted to mark the anniversary by doing something special, and I decided what better way than to finish the series I've been working on for two and a half years. Special thanks to everyone who has read the whole thing from beginning to end. It's been quite a ride, for me and the characters._

* * *

It was a rarity for Ronda not to feel irritable when she was required to sit and wait for someone. Patience had never been, and would never be her strong point. However, on this occasion she could hardly have been more at ease. She was sitting outside Hunter Helmsley's office, knowing she would soon be invited inside to sign her new WWE contract.

The fact that she was sitting alone in the waiting area said a lot. Input from her agent had not been required on this particular contract. In fact, it was remarkable how quickly she and Hunter had been able to agree to terms when he had flown out to the house to see her a month or so earlier.

Essentially, in all key aspects, the new contract was just an extension of her existing deal for another two years. That meant that the initial request for Ronda to be paid significantly more money hadn't been met, but neither had WWE gotten their way by reducing her salary. Meeting in the middle at the original amount had seemed like a simple solution when Hunter had suggested it, and Ronda had agreed.

When it had come down to it, she just had not been able to imagine herself walking away from WWE. There were so many people there who meant a lot to her, and so many memories that it would have been so hard to leave behind.

With nothing else to do while she waited, Ronda allowed her mind to dwell on some of those people and memories. Most importantly of course, there was Seth. How could she have left the company that had brought her together with the love of her life, not once but twice? Wrestling had allowed them to meet, and to fix their relationship after it had broken down. The business still very much connected them, even though Ronda was only with WWE part time. Their time on the road working for WWE was still so precious to them both, given their frantically busy but often separate schedules. She was able to clearly picture the huge smile that had appeared on Seth's face when she had told him the news that she had agreed to sign the new contract. Just seeing that itself had made it worthwhile.

But there had been other people who had also been happy to hear the news. The moment Ronda had walked into Elena D'Agostino and Bayley's locker room and given them the news replayed itself in her mind. They had both smiled in delight before getting up to hug her. Only a few days later they had trumped her announcement with one of their own; taking the incredibly courageous decision to announce their engagement in front of the entire locker room. Ronda had never seen two happier people in her life. Sitting outside Hunter's office, she felt a tear come to her eye as she remembered everyone applauding her two close friends. No one deserved happiness more than they did. Their story was truly heartwarming.

Next came the memory of the moment she had passed on the news of the new contract to Nikki Bella, who had been her friend since her first day in WWE, despite their many differences in character. "Oh, Ronda. I'm so happy for you. It would have been awful to lose you," Nikki had said as they had embraced each other.

Then it had been Charlotte Flair's turn to get the news, luckily in the privacy of an otherwise empty locker room. "I've agreed to sign a new deal with WWE," Ronda had announced.

"I never doubted it," Charlotte had smiled, immediately offering a hug. It was while they had been in each other's arms that she had added, "I never doubted it because my dad was right with what he said to you. 'No matter what else you do in your career, WWE is your home.' He would have been so happy and so proud right now."

Ronda had felt tears on her cheeks before Charlotte was even finished speaking, and she found herself fighting them back again now, not wanting to cry in WWE headquarters, in front of Hunter's receptionist. Holding her emotions in check wasn't easy as she pictured her late mentor the last time she had seen him. It had been such a casual goodbye in a hallway at an arena. If there had been even a hint towards the fact that she would never see him again, there would have been so much more she would have said.

Then she pictured Ric's funeral, what little of it she had been able to see through her tears. She could clearly remember the moment his coffin had been carried past her down the church's aisle after service. In that moment, she had felt like her heart was literally tearing itself in half. The pallbearers - Hunter being one of them - had walked past slowly enough for Ronda to reach out and briefly place a hand on the coffin in one last attempt to feel close to the man she had come to love like a second father. She could remember that sight setting Seth off crying beside her.

"I love you," Ronda said quietly as she pictured Ric's face again, not realising she had spoken out loud or that a tear had escaped to run down her cheek.

"Sorry?" Hunter's secretary said, looking up from whatever document she was writing notes on.

"Nothing," Ronda said quickly, wiping the tear away, hoping that it hadn't been noticed.

Only a moment later, the phone on the receptionists desk rang. Ronda heard her pick up the handset and then say, "Yes, sir." She replaced the handset and looked across at Ronda once more. "Mr Helmsley will see you now."

"Thank you," Ronda said, taking a deep breath to get her emotions back in check as she got up and walked over to the door leading into the Chairman's office.

"Come in, Ronda," Hunter said warmly when she opened the door. She saw that there was a camera setup to film the signing for the WWE Network, as Hunter had told her to expect. The cameraman nodded a greeting which Ronda returned in kind. "Sorry for the wait; tech troubles," Hunter explained. "But we're good to go now."

"No problem," Ronda said as she accepted his handshake. "I was just thinking about some of the memories I've got thanks to my time here. I was thinking about Ric." Her voice had dropped with the final sentence.

"He'd have been glad you made the right decision here," Hunter said warmly, gesturing for her to take a seat on one of the two leather office chairs that had been positioned behind his desk.

"So, how's this going to go?" Ronda asked, making herself comfortable on the chair. She had no intention of crying about Ric again now, when they were soon to have a camera on them.

Hunter sat down beside her and opened the leather binder that had pride of place on the desk. Ronda saw that her new contract was inside, along with a gold fountain pen. "This is the contract," Hunter said. "It's all as we agreed. Take a minute to read it over and make sure you're happy, then we'll turn the camera on. I'll give a brief introduction, you'll sign the contract, we'll shake hands. That'll be the job done, and it'll be on the Network within minutes as breaking news."

Nice and simple, just the way Ronda liked things. "Let's do it," she said. A minute later, after she had read over the terms she was agreeing to and finding them all in order, she nodded. "Okay, ready to sign."

"Excellent." Hunter looked at the cameraman and said, "Ready when you are."

The cameraman counted down from five with his fingers, then Hunter spoke into the camera for the audience. "Good morning. It's been a busy morning here at WWE HQ in Stamford. I'm here with Ronda Rousey, and I'm delighted to announce that we've reached an agreement on a new two year contract, which Ronda is about to sign, unless you've got any last minute surprises?" he asked with a chuckle, turning to look at her.

"Did I remember to mention I want your job as part of the deal?" Ronda asked with a grin. Then she got more serious and looked at the camera. "I'm really happy to be signing for another two years. I consider WWE to be me home, and it means a lot for me to be able to stay."

Smiling, Hunter handed the gold pen to her and the camera zoomed right in to see the signature go on the dotted line. Just like that, it was done. Ronda and WWE were tied to each other for two more years.

With both of them facing the camera and smiling, they exchanged a handshake to celebrate the occasion.

"Okay," the cameraman said to indicate that he had turned off the camera.

"Just like that," Ronda said, blowing out a sigh. There had been so much stress and upset over the renewal, but now it was all over.

"Just like that," Hunter agreed, still smiling. They stood, and Hunter followed Ronda to the door, where they said their goodbyes.

Before she walked away, Ronda had just one more question on her mind. "Hunter, why did we have to wait so long after we agreed terms before I came and signed the contract? I mean, you were insistent it had to be today. Why?"

"I thought you weren't going to ask. It had to be today."

"But why?" Ronda asked, seeing something in his eyes that told her he was up to something.

"Come this way," Hunter said, leading her past his receptionist and out into the hallway. "I thought I was going to have to let you leave then come out here to catch up with you and surprise you."

"Surprise me?" Ronda asked with a hint of nervousness. "With what?"

Hunter reached a door with 'Boardroom' on the plaque. With a hand on the door handle, Hunter said, "You weren't the only one who came in to sign a new contract today. That's why it had to be today." With a flourish, he opened the door.

With no clue as to what she should expect, Ronda walked towards the door that Hunter was now holding open. What, or rather who, she saw made her stop in her tracks. "No way," she said, not believing her eyes.

"Hey, Ronda," the person who had been waiting in the boardroom said.

Brie Bella walked forward and Ronda embraced her in a very heartfelt manner. Years earlier, not long after Ronda had joined WWE, Brie's husband Daniel had been shot and killed by a supposed fan of hers. Brie had tried to continue her career as a wrestler, but had found it too tough without Daniel, and had retired a few months after his death. Now, it seemed, she had decided to return. Although the two women had remained friends, this news had been kept a total secret.

"You're coming out of retirement?" Ronda asked once they pulled apart.

"I am," Brie was delighted to confirm. "Time is a great healer. I hated being here without Daniel after he died, but as you know, as he would have wanted, I've been able to move on. Since I got married again, I've been considering coming back. I talked to Nikki about it, and this is where things ended up. Nikki and I are both going to do another year or so in the ring, then we're both going to retire together."

Ronda found that idea really sweet. "That's lovely, Brie. I'm really happy for you. It's going to be awesome to have you back with us."

"I'm just glad you decided to stay," Brie said.

Ronda had forgotten for a moment that Hunter was there, until she heard his voice from behind. "If you're wondering why I arranged this surprise to happen in here, turn around," he said.

When she did as he asked, Ronda saw that there was a large framed picture on the wall next to do the door. In the centre of it was the WWE logo with the words 'Women's Revolution' underneath. The picture consisted of the faces of all the notable women who had wrestled for the company since the revolution had started several years earlier. Ronda had pride of place on one side of the logo, with her close friend and on-screen nemesis Elena D'Agostino on the other. Nikki and Brie were including in the picture, predictably next to each other.

"I had that put up this morning," Hunter said. "Thought you might like it."

"It's amazing, and an honour," Ronda said in awe, walking over to stand in front of the picture. She looked at each of the women in the picture in turn, conjuring up memories of each of them in the process. Brie walked over and stood beside her, doing the same thing herself.

Minutes ticked by. Brie noticed the distant expression on her friend's face and asked, "What are you thinking about, Ronda?"

"I'm thinking about what's next."

END


End file.
